Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - All the Dangerous Things

Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

70 reviews

tanyafrey's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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sadgirlsidney's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense

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

4.5

"Nothin' about grief makes sense." He shook his head "Not for any of us."

So much guessing something as it happens and then going “I FUCKING KNEW IT” Bit of a slow burn at the beginning, lots of info dumping to get you to certain places. Overall I really enjoyed it, these are the types of books that got me back into reading as an adult. It's been a while since I’ve indulged in one this good!

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minimicropup's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

Watchful, inquisitive, layered.

We follow our MC trying to find out what happened to their child, who was kidnapped one night from their crib. We see how it affects their health, relationships, and how they navigate sharing the case under the judgemental eye of true crime consumers. We also get their memories from when they were a child and what happened to their little sister, who they were close to.

🇺🇸 Set in Savannah, Georgia, USA

🎧 Narration was enjoyable to listen to and easy to follow. The narrator did well with the "then" chapters for little kid voices, and being expressive without it sounding overdone or cheesy.

🐺🐕 Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags:

👌 Realistic characters and real consequences. All the characters are morally grey. Most are neither fully evil nor fully good. We get hints into their backgrounds and rationale for selfish actions. Lies snowball into more major situations. There are misogynistic actions but the reasons for it aren't just based on "all men are jerks".

👍The unhinged/unreliable-ness was well done. I swayed back and forth for most of the book wondering if Ben is a total jerk and that's why Isabel is doubting herself. Or is he kind of the victim and Isabel is the troublesome person causing her own misfortune?

👍 I liked the narrative and how there was a lot happening, but not in an overwhelming way. We get switches between the past when Isabel is 8 years old, and moments from before she had her son, how she met Ben, through to what happened and how things are going now. It flowed well for me without being fragmented or disconnecting. Single first person narration for the audio definitely helps.

👍 I liked the portrayal of what it's like to be on the other side of the true crime entertainment industry and how it can be helpful and harmful for victims families.

👍 Clues as to what happened are gradually unravelled in a natural way, parallel with suspense created from the plot development and situations Isabel gets in to. Even though some may be able to figure it out with successive reveals, there are several outcomes possible. The ending had some slightly convenient moments but didn't ruin it for me.

Mood Reading Match Up:

Unreliable narrator because of exhaustion, lack of sleep
Clues, puzzling, red herrings about who did it and what happened
True crime missing child plot with commentary about the true crime genre and what it's like to be on the other side of the stories
Podcaster elements (navigating being on a podcast)

Content Heads-Up: Infidelity (suspected, emotional affairs). Missing child. Sleep disorders (sleepwalking, insomnia, passing out). Postpartum psychosis. Emotional abuse (withdrawing affection, gaslighting). Lying about birth control. Miscarriage (memories, discussed). Death of a child. Misogyny (medical, mental health).

Format: Audible

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r_o_s_e's review

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dark emotional reflective sad 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

3.0

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feralbookwife's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Fast paced, solid mystery. Kept me guessing until the end.

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tifftastic87's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Isabel Drake is a mother slowly unraveling from the kidnapping of her son. We enter the story one year after his disappearance, the police have no leads and the only clue is an open window. Izzy is distraught, and suffering from severe insomnia, her husband has left her and she has no one to turn to for help. She's been throwing herself into researching all of her neighbors and telling her story at true crime conventions, where she meets Waylon. Waylon is a young podcaster invested in her story and his appearance changes Izzy's investigation and everything she knows.

I wasn't sure about this one at first, but the way it stuck with me. The bits we know about Izzy's life come out in drips and drabs over the course of the book. We get tiny flashbacks to her childhood and her meeting her husband. All of these flashbacks and the little morsels of information we get serve to paint her as an unreliable narrator, and then add to that her extreme lack of sleep and you have a portrait of a woman losing her mind and her grip on ... well everything.

The twists were foreshadowed nicely in a way that really made you think Izzy was even more unhinged than she is. I didn't expect most of them and I really didn't expect the outcome at all.

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