Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - No Exit

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

No Exit by Taylor Adams

14 reviews

manicpixl's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

2.0

I was really hoping to like this book, after I heard it mentioned positively so many times, and I generally enjoy isolation thrillers.
Unfortunately, this one didn't do it for me.
At first it was a quick read, so I wanted to finished it, and I did, but it started to drag sometime after the half-way point and I found myself skim reading some passages.

I found the plot beats entirely predictable and not even well executed.
During the whole book I failed to get a grip on the spacial and temporal descriptions. At least once per scene I was completely disoriented as to where everyone and everything was or how they moved around. I had no concept of the distances since sometimes a movement was described in such details that it took pages, and I thought it must have taken minutes, when it seem the author wanted to convey seconds. I found myself wondering: Is this urgent? Is this slow? Are the sixty seconds mentioned over yet? Are they far from each other? I never knew. (I'm not a native English speaker, so take this with a grain of salt, but I've almost exclusively read English novels for the last 20 years, and this is not a problem that I usually encounter.)
The characters are clichéd, stereotypical and two dimensional. Unfortunately, don't have anything else to say about them.
The point of view seemed inconsistent to me: Most of the time it was clearly third person limited, but sometimes, especially in Darby's perspective, as the main character, facts were used she couldn't know or things described she couldn't possible see
When the point of view shifted, which was so rare that it always felt jarring, the writing style didn't shift with it, so the other characters third person limited sounded just as Darby, which for me was even more jarring (this can be considered nit-picky, but the fact that this took me out of the story this noticibly, to me speaks for itself)
I might have respected the book a little bit more if it had had the guts to actually kill off Darcy in the end, instead of the very transparent fake-out in the last chapter

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lonelyghostsclub's review

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4.0

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delaniraeann's review

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dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Ok wow this book was fantastic!! Didn't think it would surpass my expectations. I was not expecting much from it (especially bc I was noticing some problematic stuff) but it blew me away in the end. It carries you off into a blood curling, anxious adventure, psychological intrigue, and a study of circumstance and choices and actions. Gripping pace and narrative. My only one big issue is with the overdone trope of disabled people being dangerous and criminals and having terrible outcomes. The character and Lars' background doesn't sit right with me. He was obviously abused and used by his psychopath brother and though I'm not justifying his behavior, I feel like he really didn't know better throughout and he too was a victim of his brother. It honestly made me uncomfortable that the way he's described perpetuates nasty stereotypes of disabled people. I think the story would've been compelling without this, regardless. Another thing that although it didn't divert much attention away from Darby and the plot, I feel like we really didn't gain anything from the little look into that cop's life. Unless it kinda was to show that cops who shoot people almost always come from disintegrated homes?? I don't know but it was unnecessary. And although I think this book was fascinatingly written there is a a few content warnings: the N-word is used once in this book, as is derogatory language against women and the Chinese. I obviously understand the context those were employed but it's a little dampening nonetheless. Characters wise, Darby Thorne was a great, and I think, realistic mc. Though she was ageist with poor Ed and that cost her and she was hard to get stuff like come on. But the bonding she forms with little Jay is absolutely cute and sweet and fed my found family needs. Ashley Garver was so annoying and hateful and just a cathartic villain. I honestly do love these kinds of villains that are so easy to hate and I can pour all my hatred and horrible thoughts on them. Love the feeling of elation I get when they finally get their punishment. Yeah, morally ambiguous villains with complicated motives are great, but sometimes I just wanna hate someone so despicable beyond redemption with all my guts. The ending made me tear up bc I thought my girl Darby had d worded. she doesn't. So I really liked how it all concluded in a bittersweet way.

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