Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship
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
Several really important topics are covered with enough depth that they’re not trivialised but evoke thought. The title of the book is the most perfect symbolism. However, excluding Santiago, I didn’t have a true connection with the characters hence the rating, but it’s still a book I would recommend.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol
Moderate: Medical content, Death of parent
Minor: Sexism, Terminal illness
Graphic: Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Abandonment
Graphic: Drug abuse, Sexism, Suicide attempt
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Blood, Toxic friendship
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol
Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexism, Medical content, Death of parent, Sexual harassment
Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Transphobia
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol
Moderate: Suicide, Dementia
Minor: Misogyny, Racism, Sexism
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Gore, Grief, Abandonment, Classism
Minor: Ableism, Transphobia, Antisemitism, Acephobia/Arophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Alcohol