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Graphic: Addiction
Moderate: Suicide attempt
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence
Graphic: Alcoholism, Self harm, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Death of parent
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Terminal illness
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Grief, Death of parent
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Death
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Transphobia, Vomit
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Chronic illness, Death, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Outing, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Classism
Minor: Transphobia, Vomit
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Abandonment
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, Dementia
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Animal death, Suicide, Medical content
Minor: Homophobia, Racism
4.5✨
“When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.”
This was something different than I usually read and I’m so glad I picked it up.
-0.5 because:
- the end chapter of chapter 10
WHY IS HE m**** IN A STEAKHOUSE BATHROOM - I don’t like Eleanor or her first person pov.
Why doesn’t Cleo get a happy ending :( but Frank, the guy who has more red flags than I have sticky notes, gets a happy ending?????
Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting
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