Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Worry by Alexandra Tanner

3 reviews

liblibby's review

Go to review page

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

4.0

Ordinarily I don't enjoy books in the "depressed twenty-something woman who lives in NYC" genre but I rather enjoyed this one. Maybe because it's about sisters and I have such a complex non-relationship with my sister that a story about sisters who love each other--even if they hate each other, was what my soul needed. But also, this story stayed on the humorous side of realistic. It didn't get too depressing but it still felt very honest.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

riverestyx's review

Go to review page

dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

elvenpanther's review

Go to review page

reflective fast-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I’m torn on how I should rate this book. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but I didn’t dislike it either. If I had to describe the novel in a single sentence I’d say it was a portrait of modern technology addicted millennials with mommy issues and a healthy dose of burnt-out apathy. And to be fair, this is where many real individuals of that generation are sitting in this day and age.

Poppy’s ideas about dead art, to me, are just as numbing as the ideas in the play. The shows I watch are dead. The middling novels I take apart bit by tiny bit for Booksmarts are dead. Dead art is everywhere. Dead art is my life. By the time we get inside, I’m exhausted.

The novel follows Jules and her younger sister Poppy, who has moved into her NYC apartment. The sisters have a very mercurial relationship, most likely thanks to the awful relationship they share with their mother. It feels as if their mother purposefully sows discord between the sisters because if they pull away from each other, perhaps they’ll value her time and ideas more. Their mother very much wants to maintain a position of power over her daughters and is extremely narcissistic. While both sisters had definitely dealt with a childhood full of emotional acrobatics, I believe, even though the younger of the two, Poppy was beginning the process of healing and trying to move past her traumas and struggles. Jules on the other hand was very much stuck in a rut. Between the lack of enthusiasm with her career, dissatisfaction with her perceived lack of life accomplishments, a dependency on social media and internet memes to drown out the overwhelming press of the problems around her, Jules has a lot of aspects of her personality that many could relate to. I didn’t really like Jules as a person though, I think because you could see throughout the novel that she wasn’t really trying to make an effort to improve her life. Not to mention how purposefully mean she could be towards her sister. This very likely is from mental health struggles, but it was still frustrating not to see any growth from her. I was really hoping to see the sisters grow closer in a positive way, or to at least see Jules gain a tiny sense of direction. That’s often how life goes though, so I can’t fully fault the novel’s message for that disappointment of mine.
The ending was abrupt and to many, may seem incomplete, but it fits in with the rest of the novel and it’s commentary on the bleakness of a society where we are so bombarded and overwhelmed with struggles from every angle that sometimes all we can do is numb ourselves to those issues with whatever distractions are available.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...