Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

80 reviews

lokidotter's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Violence, Child abuse, Murder, Gun violence, Suicide, Child death, and Domestic abuse

audalia's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Abandonment, Alcohol, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, Confinement, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Blood, Religious bigotry, Grief, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Pedophilia, Addiction, Death, and Incest

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, Grief, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Bullying, and Child death

Moderate: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Child abuse, and Addiction

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, and Eating disorder

chrstnareads's review

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault

skylerraee's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

I mean this in the best way possible: WHAT. THE. FUCK. At several points I was like, how can there be this many more pages if things are wrapping up? And I was wrong every single time. I genuinely cried at the end, partly because it was over but also because of how beautifully written it was. I have a handful of books I wish I’d never read, simply so I could read them for the first time- and this is definitely one of them. 6/5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Alcoholism

hxppyhxt's review against another edition

slow-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

2.0

2 Stars instead of 1 because I really enjoyed the first half or so of the book.

Far too long of a book. I really enjoyed the first half or so of the book, then I got to the point where I was like there is still half of this book to read and everything in the summary has been done. And the random capitalization in words was so annoying, I thought they would spell something (especially when the author set this up to be the case with 

Spoilerthe journal) but spelling them out in many places was just fruitless. Very frustrating. I decided to DNF after an entire chapter of the uppercase nonsense where I spent so long trying to decode it only to get something along the lines of "HIMEEEEEEEIEEE". So many "hE". I thought that maybe it was intentional to just refer to a specific character in this way, but then even within the chapter it was not consistently "hE", sometimes it would just be a normal "he", which blew that theory out of the water. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to figure it out but honestly it got to the point where I didn't even care enough to figure it out.

Some of the twists were well set up so that you could figure them out or at least get a sense that something was amiss. Others felt completely random and felt like they had virtually no setup or foreshadowing.

SpoilerI don't mind some religious undertones, but in this case it really felt like two different books. The first half really had very little indication that the plot was headed towards a Christian allegory, and then in the second half it just felt like "and guess what, this is Satan. Oh and this? Yea she's actually the Virgin Mary. Oh yea, this is God. This is the Tree of Good and Evil. This is Eve, you know from the garden of Eden? And this is literal Hell" and on and on. I feel like setting it up more at the beginning would have made it feel less random.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Blood, Torture, Pregnancy, Suicide, Body horror, and Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

paronomaniac's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Blood, and Torture

Moderate: Gun violence, Pedophilia, Violence, Suicide, Dementia, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcoholism and Car accident

amberjackonski's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual assault

lizkoroskenyi's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

I'm too tired after reading this mammoth to put together a well written review... So here are just some quick thoughts I had while reading.

Fine but pretentious. I enjoyed the story up until the halfway mark and then wondered why he couldn't just wrap it up and be done? Why did it need to be over 700 pages?

It felt very much like he was trying to write a Stephen King book. Especially with the unneeded deep backgrounds on every single character and super long, unnecessary drawn out scenes.

There were so many statements that felt like they were supposed to be profound but really weren't. It read more like Christian horror fanfiction than anything deep and complex.

Every other line was a simile or a metaphor and it got VERY sickening very quickly. Especially since they were mostly terrible.

Also what is up with the author's obsession with the cool side of the pillow? It must have come up at least a hundred times.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death and Torture

Minor: Child abuse and Domestic abuse

theimposter's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Murder, Sexual violence, Confinement, Physical abuse, War, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Self harm, Suicide, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Forced institutionalization, Alcoholism, Body horror, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexual assault, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, and Medical trauma

Minor: Dementia, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Cursing, Drug abuse, Religious bigotry, Addiction, Chronic illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis