Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

23 reviews

s1ck4n's review

mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Death, Mental illness, and Grief

Minor: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Drug use

oliviastewart716's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

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

I have so much to say about this and nothing to say about this at the same time. Just like, why would you right this? It wasn’t terrible, I just don’t know what the intention was here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Alcohol, Child death, Grief, Medical trauma, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Blood

Minor: Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and Abandonment

gjenn's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Death

Minor: Alcoholism and Death of parent

jamarie's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Death of parent, and Mental illness

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad 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

4.0

I liked the speediness of this book. The short chapters ❤️ I'm seeing reviews that don't like the fractured writing but that's what got me in the first place. Despite the muddled, neurotic over-sentimentality, the writing didn't feel off-putting or clunky for me. At points I got some Merricat/WHALITC vibes. (Was that what E. Lockhart was going for, maybe?) Sometimes, I'm in the mood for this style idk. Also, maybe it's bc I'm a metiche chismosa but I was all in reading about the lazy, worse than parasites, rich, mentally stunted daughters and all the awful manipulation they did to their own kids to get their inheritance from the racist patriarch and the eventual self-destruction by the dumbest kids alive lmao. I guessed the plot twist ! and actually had a fun time reading this almost soap opera about racist white rich democrats (😬), but the ending was a little icky tho bc none of these characters deserve pity or second chances bc they didn't grow and I don't care about them becoming a "real" family.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Child death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Dementia, Alcoholism, Animal death, and Vomit

Minor: Cancer, Death of parent, and Self harm

readingwithkaitlyn's review

dark mysterious 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Death, Grief, Self harm, Sexism, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, Medical content, Racism, and Ableism

Moderate: Alcohol, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Dementia, and Hate crime

Minor: Colonisation, Vomit, Cancer, Death of parent, and Rape

g slur, homelessness, poaching.

rachelizx's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Death

Moderate: Racism, Grief, and Animal death

Minor: Death of parent

malloryhill10's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Chronic illness, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Death of parent and Grief

katherinek's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This absolutely tore me into pieces. It was so beautifully written and I didn’t expect the ending at all. The characters felt so real. Some of the metaphors confused me, though, which took away some of the shock factor for the first plot twist for me because I found myself going back trying to figure out if it was real or not. The middle also slows down just a bit, but after the ending I realized why so many of the seemingly unimportant details in the middle were actually so important. This is one I would totally go back and reread to try and find all the clues I missed—

How they never went to dinner, they didn’t want Cady to jump off the rocks, the kids seeing ghosts, none of them receiving her gifts or responding to Cady’s emails, Aunt Carrie walking around at night, the lie about the donut shop, why Grandad kept calling her Mirren, etc etc.

I don’t think a book has ever made me cry as hard as this one did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Dementia, Drug use, Alcohol, Racism, Death of parent, Classism, and Medical content

Minor: Cancer and Suicidal thoughts

ellelockley's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

2.0

It follows the character of Cadence Sinclair Eastman and how her family has affected her as a person. It's very hard to explain in simple terms what this book is about without spoiling anything because it's kind of all over the place. The characters aren't loveable and I don't really connect with any of them, to me Cady was just a girl who didn't understand her privilege and whilst I get that just because you have money doesn't mean you have a good life, I still don't think that's an excuse for the way she acts in this book. I thought Gat was quite an interesting character but there wasn't much too him and I think that could have been explored a bit more. I sort of guessed the ending in the middle of the book which kind of made it a bit boring to read towards the end. I did quite like the style that the book was written in, as it was fast-paced for me but I could still understand what was happening. There is character development to an extent, as the reasons why characters are the way they are, are sort of explained towards the end. I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone but if you've got it on your TBR list then I think you should give it a go.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Medical trauma, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, Dementia, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Death of parent, Classism, and Racism

It talks about physical pain as a metaphor for mental pain which can be quite graffic and triggering