Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Bad Fruit by Ella King

7 reviews

mmefish's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Could be a solid 4/5 but the ending is a let down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Gaslighting, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Car accident, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, and Alcoholism

Minor: Rape, Incest, and Suicide

cookiecatherine's review against another edition

4.0

Different and more intense than I expected, leaning more literary thriller than family drama. The depiction of intergenerational trauma and abuse felt, to me, nuanced and humanizing even as brutal as it got. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Incest and Rape

sofiam19's review

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse

Moderate: Self harm, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Rape, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pedophilia

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Vomit, and Eating disorder

emmanoellovato's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Okay this is objectively a five star book, but I also wish that I could forget I read it. Just so captivating, but also incredibly disturbing. I don’t feel great after reading it, but I also couldn’t put it down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Body shaming, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Incest, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Alcohol, and Car accident

batcaves's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Gaslighting, Incest, Violence, Bullying, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Pedophilia, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, War, Abandonment, Confinement, Eating disorder, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

aigreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Incest, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Rape, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Infidelity

Minor: Car accident

estherb's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

LILY IS A GOOD DAUGHTER

Every evening she pours Mama a glass of perfectly spoilt orange juice. She arranges the teddy bears on Mama’s quilt, she puts on her matching pink clothes. Anything to help put out the fire of Mama’s rage.

MAMA IS A GOOD LIAR

But Mama is becoming unpredictable, dangerous. And as she starts to unravel, so do the memories that Lily has kept locked away for so long.
She only wanted to be good, to help piece Mama back together. But as home truths creep out of the shadows, Lily must recast everything: what if her house isn’t a home – but a prison? What if Mama isn’t a protector – but a monster . . .

This novel depicts how toxic relationships aren’t just between partners and lovers, but can be at the centre of family dynamics too.

Lily’s mother May was abused as a child and these flashbacks are manifesting in Lily. May is becoming the abuser to her husband and her children and is becoming more and more unstable and unpredictable.

Lily tries to cope by being subservient to her mother which results in worse treatment so she ends up self harming to cope.

This was a difficult read in places as the relationships were so disjointed and unbalanced. The parents acted like the children and vice versa.

For such a young woman Lily has huge responsibility and her mother acts like a spoilt child most of the time.

Her father, although suffering part of the abuse thrown around by May, doesn’t act like a parent but tends to let Lily deal with the fallout.  He’s also not such a good father as we’re lead to believe.

The only one to stand up to their mother is Julia, who is often ostracised by their mother and labelled a ‘wh@re’ and has demons of her own, as does the whole family.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse

Moderate: Incest and Rape