Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

92 reviews

sinelaborenihil's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy

thequiltyreader's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Predictable and a bit drawn out but OK for a palette cleanser.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment

readreadruby's review

3.0

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy

Minor: Miscarriage, Death of parent

holliharsh's review

3.0

dark sad fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Suicide, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent

sarahmcollette's review

4.0

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Suicide, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy

chelseap7's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Stalking, Abandonment

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Suicide, Pregnancy

Minor: Death of parent

cjones12's review

4.0

fast-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Rape, Kidnapping, Pregnancy

Minor: Suicide, Death of parent

reading_in_maine's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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: No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Kidnapping

Moderate: Violence, Murder

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death of parent

tamm992's review against another edition

3.75

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Pregnancy

nekoprankster218's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This was a fine book. There wasn't much to really grip me, to make me feel super strongly even months after putting it down, beyond a few moments I thought were good "whammys" - but I wasn't disappointed either. I will say that it gets heavy at times; and while the ending is an oddly calm resolution, it is not completely happy either.

I see a lot of reviews saying that this book was predictable, even quickly predictable. I have to disagree, although I acknowledge that it might just be because A. my brain is weird when trying to guess things and B. I don't read this kind of book often. By a third into the book, I was spread between multiple different theories;

fellow readers, can you believe I was leaning towards Poppy being an "abused-to-age-regression" Ellie, and Floyd was a DDLG freak? I was also, until the Noelle POVs started, leaning heavily that Floyd was more involved in the case than he was: that maybe he was the one to do the killing of Ellie, or that he either ordered or manipulated Noelle into getting him a young girl to abuse, and even awhile into the Noelle POVs I was wondering if he was going to be more involved in the plot to turn Ellie into a forced surrogate.

By the halfway mark, the theories were getting trimmed down, but I still wasn't 100% sure what the final answers were going to be until they were on the page before me.

I think part of it was that so many little things were building up the image of Floyd being more sinister than he turned out to be. I did question if Blue's "vibe check" was a red herring. But then I was thinking that Floyd was perhaps an abuser of Poppy, that he had a darker ulterior motive for Laurel. It came across that it was odd for Floyd to be keeping Poppy from the Donnelly family (altho in hindsight it makes more sense). He was lying about things. It seemed like not all about Poppy was healthy. Laurel felt the need to text Hanna and Paul about her whereabouts, and I thought that was going to come into play in the climax. Yet, despite him being a liar and a stalker and a fraud... Everything still ended up fine? He was just trying to reunite Poppy and Laurel? And then he just exited the picture, without even facing Laurel and telling her everything in person? I was expecting a more dramatic confrontation, and not getting it after what felt like a whole lot of build up, was more anti-climactic than "ooh, what a twist!"

If there is one thing I do agree with the lukewarm and negative reviews, everything wrapped up too nicely and neatly. However, for me, it's not to the point that it's lowered my opinion of the book. Even as I write this, I even find myself going: "Yeah, I guess with this ending, a lot about the build-up still makes sense, and I see what the author was going for with the final twist."

There is one thing I did notice and liked about the story:

there felt like a theme of "obsession" that tied all the core characters together. Of course, Noelle was obsessed with Floyd and Ellie, and that became the catalyst for everything. Laurel was obsessed with Ellie, and it contributed to the ruining of the Mack family and her own life, with her finally learning how to let go... although I feel like some lines about Poppy in the final chapter feels a bit like history repeating itself, whether the author intended it or not. Ellie has some bits of it - as pointed out at the start, her obsession with math grades put her on the path of becoming Noelle's victim, although it's still more minor than other obsessions. Even Floyd is not immune: he became obsessed with Laurel, becoming a bit of the stalker Noelle was towards him, albeit differing from her in that he still let go in the end.

Overall, the book wasn't the best, but I still recognize it as being solid and not a waste of time either. Maybe not everything worked out as I'd hoped, but it didn't fall apart into a mess.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death of parent

There are sections of the book narrated in first-person by the main antagonist and it veers a lot into unreliable narrator-territory, but I think sometimes it's genuinely hard to tell what is the truth and what's their delusions as they go on. Also while I'm not going so far as to tag pedophilia, the main antagonist has an unhealthy obsession with a child that gets uncomfortably close.

But as the antagonist said, it's not *really* sexual, and at times it veers into "I don't want *her*, I want to *be* her".