Reviews with content warning for Bullying - The Guilt Trip

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones

5 reviews

chelle22's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious sad tense

4.0

Content Warnings

minimicropup's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense 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

Sanctimonious. Vacillating. Petulant.

🇵🇹 Set at luxury cliffside villa in Portugal.

Four friends since college (now in their 40s) are at a destination wedding for a younger sibling. They start reexamining their own life choices after seeing the relationship dynamics of the young couple in love.

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🐺Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags🐕

🤕 The writing jumps to the past mid-way as a character recalls something and it’s not always clear that we are in a past timeline (or when we jump back to present timelines). It’s not my favourite style because I tend to imagine other characters standing around awkwardly waiting for the memory lane trip to end.

🤔 If you need likeable characters, this could be a slog. There’s a lot of insecurity among these 40-year olds and one of them borders on toxic femininity, while the one in her 20s seems vapid and annoyingly attention-seeking. It was still a fun read because although none of them were likeable to me and our MC (Rachel) was infuriating, I could understand their perspectives and the troubles they kept getting into were consistent with their personality traits. They felt like real people I don't vibe with so I didn’t feel too badly watching their lives unravel…. bit of a guilty pleasure…😜

🤷‍♀️ The worldbuilding was okay. It could have been a generic villa on any Mediterranean cliff and there were some layout issues for me where I had trouble placing rooms and therefore characters in relation to each other. It’s sorted out by ~20%, it just felt like the author was thinking of a really specific villa and didn’t entirely describe it to us.

🙄 The drama is driven by the cognitive psychology of Rachel, as we mostly get her perspective. We quickly discover she's full of cognitive biases and logical fallacies, but it isn’t presented with over-reliance on omission/baiting/lying at least. Most of the time we will know where things are heading because it is so obvious from all the foreshadowing, but Rachel will be oblivious or dismissive.

🤪 Mystery and suspense are from observing character interactions. Is there a scandalous situation? Are the rumours true? We get little reveals and new mysteries throughout the story, but to get there we endure a lot of Rachel with her delayed clue-ins and overthinking denial monologues.

🥴 I lost interest whenever Rachel and Paige would go through spin-outs but it worked for the story. Rachel was so agonizingly self-defeating. She ruminates on every decision as if it just happens to her instead of acknowledging her role in choosing those outcomes. And Paige was so catty and passive-aggressive picking on Ali just because she’s young and pretty. But Ali was also annoying so sometimes that worked…like is Ali up to something and Paige is right after all? That would draw me back in when I started to feel like the story was spinning its wheels stuck in Rachel’s mind.

🫥 For me the theme of lost youth, regrets, and life just ‘happening’ were so heavily woven through almost every plot point and interaction that I had a hard time connecting. Depending on your life circumstances this could be full of relatable feelings and situations; the characters and circumstances, though messy, all felt plausible since they weren’t OTT or too contrived/convenient.

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🎙️ Narration was good and got me through the story sometimes. Not that it would have been a DNF, but I used the audio to break up the repetitive sentiments and add some expression and emotion to the text.

Mood Reading Match Up:

'What could have been’, missed chance, mismatched romantic suspense
Luxurious Mediterranean wedding destination summer vacay vibes
Friends behaving badly, relationship secrets and lies, lost youth drama
Swipe of “murder or accident?”

Content Heads-Up: Infidelity. Bullying. Fatphobic characters and comments. Alcohol (partying, celebrations, hang outs). Car accident. Mass murder. Suicide (implication). Existential/mid-life crisis, regret.

Format: Paperback + Library Audio via Libby

Content Warnings