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Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'
Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself by Crystal Hefner
22 reviews
elliott_the_clementine's review
Graphic: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, and Rape
tiffbetht's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Gaslighting
unicorn_sprinkles's review
4.25
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol
bunceyyy's review
2.0
I have very mixed feelings on this book, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to express them fully, and/or clearly. But I think that overall, my reaction can be summed up in the line “too little, too late”. It should be obvious to many - even without having read her memoir - that Crystal Harris had a difficult child/teenhood, and was coerced into an abusive relationship with a sexual predator. But whilst reading Only Say Good Things, my surprise was that Crystal herself seems to have known this, even whilst this abuse was happening. So her seeming desire to be absconded from any responsibility in perpetuating the Playboy myth (one which seriously damaged the development and experience of women such as myself, along with millions of others) - to be regarded only as a victim of Hef’s, and not a sometimes willing participant, as she was - jars with me. I’m unsure as to whether this is the fault of the ghost writer (who did a pretty middle-of-the-road job: continuity wasn’t great; there was some repetition; laughable lines include “Charing Cross Road sounded fancy, but also kind of British”…), but it doesn’t make Crystal a particularly likeable figure. She flicks frequently from decrying Hef as a cruel and emotionally-dead captor to heaping praise and gratitude on him - so much so that I’m unsure as to whether she knows even now how she feels about him. It seems like she wants to say more, but doesn’t want to risk the backlash, and I’d rather she have gone all out or not bothered at all. She says good and bad things happened during her time in the mansion, but if the bad things she mentions don’t outweigh all of the good, then she appears to be keeping a lot of stock in money. She spends a great deal of time lamenting poor decisions made, or her own lack of judgement; follows through with what she then learnt from this - before making the same mistakes again and again. There’s only so much sympathy you can feel for someone who has just spent almost an entire book bemoaning her (and society’s) obsession with placing a woman’s value solely on how she looks, to then hear that she decided to have a third surgical procedure to alter her image. As I noted at the time, her excuse of “I would go along with it [literally her marriage to Hef] because going along with things was what I did” just isn’t enough for me. The book was interesting in that you get an extremely in-depth view of what living in the mansion and being a Playmate was like (spoiler: at best boring, at worst physical and psychological torture), but that only really made me angrier that this was all then spun into a claim that Hef was some kind of sexual pioneer, and Playboy bunnies were the height of female sexual liberation. Near the end of the book, Crystal goes to the storage facility where Hef’s three thousand scrapbooks (don’t get me started) are kept, and we are told of two letters she finds immortalised and shown off in these books. The first is from a 12 year-old girl, telling Hef that her dream is to live in the mansion, and asking what one has to do to get in there; the second, “from a young man thanking Hef for teaching him how to treat women”. So forgive me - a woman who has been treated that way by a lot of men - if I think that a book which, yes, does go someway to revealing the “truth” behind Hef/Playboy doesn’t do enough when it comes from a woman who also spends much of her memoir trying to humanise and defend him.
Graphic: Toxic relationship
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Death of parent
Minor: Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, and Abortion
kloughlin's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Body shaming, Drug use, Rape, and Abortion
growintogardens's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Bullying, Rape, and Sexual assault
rachreads925's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Eating disorder, Rape, Sexual assault, and Abortion
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
alipp's review
Bits of it were definitely self indulgent but there were also a lot of parts that were super healing for me to hear as well. I’m glad that she’s healed & moved on. I didn’t know much about Crystal at all, had only seen episodes of the Girls Next Door before she was on it. Interesting to hear about how the Playboy Mansion
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
lovelymisanthrope's review
"Only Say Good Things" is a memoir from Crystal Hefner, Famous Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's final wife. This novel sheds some light on Crystal's life before the mansion, and how she found herself living what everyone believed was the dream life. It also chronicles Hugh Hefner's final days.
Overall, I thought this book was organized well, was well written, and was informative as well as entertaining. I think Crystal did a great job at trying to explain herself and share the mental state she was in during her time at the mansion. Hearing her perspective on what was happening at the mansion during her time there gave me more sympathy for the atrocities she went through.
I continue to be fascinated by the world of Playboy, and I look forward to indulging in more media like this in the future.
Graphic: Bullying, Death, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Abortion, and Death of parent
Minor: War
theappendices's review against another edition
1.0
How it's written/pacing: It's ok. It does seem like it is more "dear diary" style than professionally written and edited. It is a very fast read but also because of how dark it is can be jarring.
My ratings system: 1,3,5 only
1 star - read thru/not dnf
3 star - liked the book
5 star - left an impact/vibes were vibing
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment
Moderate: Addiction, Body shaming, Mental illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Gaslighting
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, and Pedophilia