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outofthepinksky's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Car accident, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Rape, Blood, Self harm, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Fatphobia, Suicide, Animal death, Drug use, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Cursing, and Death of parent
jaedia's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Incest, Medical content, Animal death, Suicide, Violence, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gore, Gaslighting, Death, Blood, Self harm, and Gun violence
Moderate: Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Murder, Pedophilia, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Car accident, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Abandonment, and Incest
morganpearcy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
Let me explain.
Things I enjoyed about the book:
- There’s an unexpected twist.
- It’s a quick read.
The scene where Anna yanks on Jude’s beard when he asks a dumbass question about why she thought beards were a liability in a fight. - There’s an attempt (albeit inadequate) at a feel-good ending.
Things I hated about the book:
- The ‘torture’ psychological, physical, etc was unimaginative, lacked creativity and was too phallic. Stop regurgitating TV show tropes and give us something real from your own darkness, dear author!
- From page 10, I was rooting for the ghost and was thinking it would be a nice story to read where the universe can meet out some justice. I was looking forward to Jude’s death with some serious bloodlust. But no - about 2/3 of the way through there’s a twist and guess what?
BOTH the ghost and the main character are, you guessed it - toxic freaking cishet men. There IS no one to root for. The women characters are woefully underdeveloped with zero personalities and I couldn’t root for any of them, either. This isn’t an antihero situation. The author is simply completely inadequate in attempting to make Jude a whole character. Read on for an explanation cuz I promised myself some bullet points. - The main character is underdeveloped and there are a lot of distracting incongruencias.
We jump from the intro of Jude as an eccentric musician with a flair for the macabre to Jude as caring but detached lover of barely-adult women to Jude as victim of childhood abuse to Jude as a dog lover who treats his pack like royalty, then back to Jude smashing piglets’ heads against the cement or shooting them with guns to live out a fantasy of patricide and focusing on how the pig’s heads sounded “like watermelons being smashed,” to defender of sexually abused women?! Then to man who would let their royal doggies be in pain in the back seat after having their legs smashed?? None of this did anything to develop the character. You can’t include those kinds of details without some development. Yet, the author wanted to see what stuck and threw everything at the wall when it came to Jude. - It’s not the point of the book, but the author simply doesn’t have the emotional scope, maturity or lived experience to write women SA survivors with any sort of depth or believability. Enough so that it’s distracting.
Like when Jude beats up Mary Beth’s childhood sexual abuser and Mary Beth comes back to the car and becomes physically affectionate with Jude right off the bat. I can’t speak for every SA Survivor - but I am a Survivor myself. All of the women in my life are SA Survivors excepting ONE. And I have NEVER seen that response from an actual survivor upon seeing their abuser. Especially for someone so young, who hasn’t gotten help. That response wasn’t realistic. It simply played into Jude’s toxic masc hero fantasy and what the author obviously thinks people WANT to see. When in reality it was so distractingly incongruous it made me want to plot the author’s actual murder. It was as if the author, recent to writing the book, had a woman or woman-aligning person in his life reveal that they’re an SA Survivor, he fantasized about his response in his head and then had to find a place to slap that into a story somewhere cuz he’s justice-impotent. - Again, the portrayal of women in general really exposes this author’s own implicit bias. I sincerely hope he doesn’t have a daughter. I don’t want to google it and find out. I’ll just hold on to hope.
- The ending was lackluster. Really,
both Jude and the ghost should have died. Terrible, awful deaths. The only satisfying ending would have been Mary Beth riding off into the sunset, free of Jude and at peace with her freedom and ready to get some life experience so she doesn’t make the same mistakes shacking up with toxic cishet men again.
In the end, this would have been much better as a short story culminating in several bloody deaths across the board. This was NOT a satisfying read. It wasn’t triggering. It wasn’t disturbing. It was like reading a teenage boy’s post-SVU fantasy stretched thin like butter scraped over too much bread. Go elsewhere for your horror fix. This ain’t it. .5⭐️ for potential that was never realized.
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, Child abuse, Addiction, Gaslighting, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, and Toxic friendship
jenna_justi2004's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- 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
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit