Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

2 reviews

kaylasbookgram's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What on Earth did I just read !?!? 🤯🤯🤯

I absolutely devoured this book! I will say please k is there are triggers for this book in my opinion and the biggest one being child abuse.

Right when I thought this book couldn’t get anymore dark the ending just jumped out and made my jaw drop to the ground! And that alone gave it five stars for me. However the entire book was so incredibly done. I love all the shocking events and turns of events. I loved trying to figure out what happened to Amy along with the three girls. Just bravo on this book 👏🏻 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Grief, Mental illness, Child death, Confinement, Death, Sexual content, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Violence, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body shaming, Gaslighting, Torture, Cursing, Drug use, Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Infertility, Pregnancy, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders

holdenwunders_'s review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Man I did not enjoy this. I think it was honestly misrepresented in advertising and as what Hepworth usually writes. For me, this was definitely not a thriller/mystery and wasn’t in the genre at all. It slogged on and switched between three characters and their past perspectives weaving a story of abuse, foster care, and child endangerment. As a survivour, this came across as a weird glorified story of children that are abused, are messed up as adults, and then by the end it’s all good to go. I had a hard time finding any interest in this as it was all just abuse, abuse, this child was abused. It wasn’t even triggering, it just lacked any sort of depth. It read more like a fucked up memoir of being raised by an abusive foster parent than any sort of thriller or crime story. And then at the very end, PLOT TWIST, this person was lying THE. WHOLE. TIME. This really missed for me and I honestly don’t think I’d read another by this authour in the future. 

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Suicide attempt, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child death, Ableism, Chronic illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Grief, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Torture, Death, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Violence