Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Then She Was Gone

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

94 reviews

taytayc23's review

3.75

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Overall not a bad book. I liked how everything ended up tying together, but I had it figured out about half way through. I found myself hoping for more info on the family members rather than to protagonist.

Content Warnings

lajoy's review

0.5

mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

jasminealizae's review against another edition

1.0

sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Plot was all over the place, in a bad way. Poorly thought out. 30% of the chapters could have been excluded. Do these authors get paid per page or character count? How can we switch to a POV of a character who is dead, but is being written as if she’s confessing all of her sins from the future? It was very confusing and unjustified. The ending made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

What was the reason for Floyd to have confessed his wrongdoings in a letter to Laurel, then take a train to another town just to kill hisself? Surely, he could have just killed hisself without fleeing to another town. Especially since it’s not like he committed suicide in a different city to prevent Poppy from finding out, because she ends up knowing shortly after the fact. For Noelle to have been so “obsessed” with not only Ellie, but also Floyd and wanting a child with him, it felt very forced to have her kidnap Ellie, hold her hostage, rape and impregnate her with SOMEONE ELSE’S sperm, not even Floyd’s 🤦🏽‍♀️ just to let Ellie die, and not take care of her child. Noelle was written to be this psychopath who is strange, quirky and really obsessive, but it all felt incredibly underdeveloped. As if the author did no research and thought that having Noelle do these weird/quirky things was going to be enough to get that idea across to the readers. It wasn’t. Prime example would be the hamsters.

Everything felt forced to me. The relationships, the character’s flaws, the timelines, the interactions, the abuse/neglect, literally everything. This book really solidified the fact that I hate reading books that have children in them. Poppy is nine-years-old but is written having much too mature vocabulary and conversational skills, and made entirely too aware. The backstories were extremely flat as were the characters. The connection between SJ and Laurel was for what purpose?

Other than for SJ to be the one to “egg” Laurel on to continue looking into the disappearance of Noelle by telling Laurel she saw Noelle’s stomach completely flat when Noelle was allegedly very pregnant. Poppy’s “cousins” and “grandma” storyline’s were unnecessary. The last nail in the coffin for me to officially “one star” this book was Hannah and Theo. Why make Hannah and Theo (Ellie’s boyfriend) become a couple and get married? As if the whole situation isn’t strange enough. Having Ellie get kidnapped, raped and impregnated by Noelle her math tutor, Noelle do all of these terrible things to Ellie just to secure her relationship with Floyd. Floyd date Ellie’s mother Laurel, while also raising Ellie’s daughter as his own despite knowing it’s not his child and how she was conceived. Then just when you think this is complicated enough, why not have the boy Ellie was dating when she died get married to her sister. What?!

Content Warnings

ashlyreadsevrythg's review

4.25

challenging dark mysterious 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: No

Content Warnings

grace_lynn08's review

3.75

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

sprinumter's review

4.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This is more than just a 4.5 star review! The read was dark, mysterious, emotional, and thrilling- however there were many points where the story was very predictable (hence the 4.5 not 5) as in I knew what the next plot twist was going to be. Regardless, it is one of the most interesting stories I’ve read in a while and very much enjoyed how fast paced and easily digestible the content was. Poppy is my favorite character of them all and I enjoyed the multiple viewpoints from the various characters.

Content Warnings

brookey8888's review

3.75

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Look I’m not going to lie this was such a slow start and I didn’t care and thought about DNFing because I was so bored, but it did get more interesting and I actually cried doubting the ending, but that might be because of my PMS.

Content Warnings