Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

More Than This by Patrick Ness

30 reviews

wonkwink's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

5.0

there were some boring parts but that's not gonna stop me from giving this five stars, i definitely cried at the end because i finished the book :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Suicide

Minor: Murder, Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Physical abuse

bennybooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book made my life significantly worse. This man should never be allowed to write. There’s a pain in my chest that won’t go away. You caused it. Get away from me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Kidnapping, Death, Vomit, Domestic abuse, and Gore

tmchopra's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Abandonment, Cursing, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

emclean95's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Violence, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Child death, and Blood

scout_jones's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Outing, Child abuse, Abandonment, Violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Grief, Domestic abuse, Death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Xenophobia

suncreems's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Physical abuse

Minor: Child death and Death of parent

emory's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.0

I'm not sure how much of my feelings about this book are because of me and how much of them are because of the writing itself. I definitely went into this super blind, and was not expecting the whole

'surprise! we're in the matrix!'

development, and I wasn't fond of that direction for the plot. It made me drag my feet continuing to read it. That part's on me, though, as it says on every online review page that it's science fiction and young adult. 
It does tie in to one of my main complaints about the book, though. The prose was alright, if trying too hard to sound like slam poetry at times, but the plot could not seem to make up it's mind about whether to lean into the speculative science fiction or a poetic reflection. We never get enough explanation about the former and never enough exploration into the latter, which leads to a lackluster ending and grandiose conclusions without the writing effort to back it up. 

Seth's constant questioning of reality serves no purpose except a wink wink nod to the fact that we're reading a book and to provide a convenient ending. An ending in which the main revelation, "life means never knowing what we're doing", a personally dissatisfying platitude, never gets any thoughtful prose dedicated to it and leaves even more questions for the reader. Maybe life is meant to leave major unanswered questions, but I'm unconvinced that a narrative should. 
Not to mention that the book doesn't even really hold up it's title. Towards the end, when the characters start to be shoehorned into their philosophical chit chat, Seth has a revelation about his suicidal ideation and how he feels about his life. The problem is that none of the discussion about what life means and what is left for them makes much sense. It's a commendable effort, and I'm not trying to say it's a horrible book or that I hated reading it; however, the conclusions have nothing to back them up. The characters talk in circles about the meaning of life. We get no justification about why Tomasz and Regine don't get the kind of "more" that Seth seems confident he will be able to find. Even the sweet little moment about friendship has little to nothing to back it up; they've known each other for about 3 days, and have been fighting for most of it. But suddenly they have a wonderful revelation that their amazing friendship is the point of life? That the broken world they live in isn't awful?

. 
Again, I don't have all negative things to say about this book. The plot was enjoyable--just a bit empty. The writing was a bit ornate at points, but it was fitting for the hopelessness innate to the main character at points. The descriptions were theatric and vivid, and to be able to hold attention while the entire first part of the book is a single character living in an empty wasteland is no small feat. 
Mainly, I just wish More Than This had had more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Child death, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Outing, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Gore, Homophobia, Grief, Abandonment, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Car accident, and Fatphobia

A black character on a few occasions voices something fatphobic or antiblack she expects the other characters to say to her, even though ostensibly this doesn't need to be in the narrative at all, so that's a weird choice on the authors part. Additionally this is definitely not something to read if you're not in the headspace to deal with something akin to simulation theory or that the world is fake.

rosietoast's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Suicide

Moderate: Outing, Homophobia, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Child death

vthecreature's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This started out slow but great. The mystery, the tension, the surprise when

it suddenly turned out that there were other people in the world

. As an enjoyer of mystery and soft sci-fi I was a bit disappointed when certain truths were revealed. However after seeing another reviewer’s statement that this book is almost a decade old, I kinda forgave it for that.
I didn’t see some of the smaller plot twists coming such as

Gudmund sleeping with Monica or Seth choosing to give Owen to the escaped convict (that made me GASP)

but unfortunately I quickly predicted one of the biggest plot twists (

Owen being dead the whole time. There was just too much foreshadowing.

) 
The characters weren’t super complex,

the ending lacked resolution to MANY questions, but in a frustrating way rather than a mysterious one

, and there was a bit too much explicit explanation for what and why the characters were feeling. In conclusion, this was pretty good, great by 2013 standards, just not my cup of tea at the moment. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Physical abuse, Outing, Suicide, and Blood

Moderate: Confinement, Homophobia, Body horror, and Child death

Minor: Racism, Body shaming, Sexual content, and Bullying

Kidnapping

phoehems's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Ok so the beginning was very interesting. Sometimes a bit repetitive, but intriguing.

There was no one for Seth to interact with for a big chunk of the beginning. And that was interesting.

The flashbacks/dreams were also very well written. 
Regine and Tomasz are amazing. They are deep interesting characters. Regine's personality keeps you guessing about her background. Tomasz is just so endearing. All the characters have tragic backstories.

This book is literally the Matrix. On a basic level, the Driver is the robots etc, 'real life' is Zion, Regine and Seth... Trinity and Neo? Does that make Tomasz Morpheus? Anyway, there's nothing in this story that I didn't 'know' from the Matrix. Yet somehow I still didn't know what was going to happen next. Well written!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Vomit, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Body shaming, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, and Alcoholism