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Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Grief, Suicide attempt
The only reason I finished this book was because it is my Book Club novel. I fought and sweated my way through page by page because it’s just so bad. It’s part of the trend for authors to try to make their books “deeper” by flooding every character with trauma. Pain Porn if you prefer.
The author thought that by giving each character a single-defining struggle she is making them less one-dimensional but because of that they felt almost like cartoon characters. Cleo - beautiful, thin, talented, young BUT WAIT she is depressed and has both mummy and daddy issues; Frank - beautiful, “manly”, successful, rich and older BUT WAIT he had mummy issues and is an alcoholic, Zoe - beautiful, thin, talented BUT WAIT she has seizures, Quentin - beautiful, thin, rich “snarky gay best friend” BUT WAIT he can’t come out of the closet because of his homophobic Polish family (fuck you for that Coc, enforcing Polish stereotypes) and is a drug addict, Anders - beautiful, thin, rich fuckboy BUT WAIT his step-son doesn’t like him anymore and his parents don’t visit him in the US. You see what I mean? The only half-decent characters are Eleanor and Santiago, just because they are not awful to other people, but they rarely are given voice and in the end are pushed into the role of “I can fix him” girl for Frank and “losing weight will let you find love”, respectively. Nauseating. TikTok girlies, wake up, this is not literary fiction you claim it to be.
The book obviously features a lot of content warnings - wouldn’t be a pain porn without it - but I’m not sure if it’s handled even passably well.
This book angered me on so many levels. It was the superficial depth, wannabe literary fiction, over sexualisation of everything (Zoe saying that she is “a real girl” now, after climaxing, nauseated me), disrespectful treatment of a lot of extremely heavy issues and -how could I forget - BLATANT plagiarism of other media (yes, I’m looking at you ripped-off Fleabag dinner scene). Awful
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Classism
i technically would dock points for the couple chapters written from the random friends' povs (Quinten and Santiago) because i don't feel they added anything to the storyline, but the rest of the book was strong enough to me that i am choosing to ignore those 2 chapters
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Alcohol
Moderate: Animal death, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Suicide attempt
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Alcohol
Minor: Animal death
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Alcohol
Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content, Dementia, Death of parent
A story about people broken in many different ways. People living fast-paced lives that sometimes run them over.
Of people not being right for each other and only making each other worse. It’s sad moments and beautiful moments and sometimes strangely hopeful.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicide attempt