Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Then She Was Gone

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

184 reviews

clarklyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

I have a lot of feelings about this book. I devoured it for one. It kept me hooked from the very beginning and reminded me of Lovely Bones. There really wasn’t a twist in my opinion-

it is pretty obvious who Poppy’s mother is even before the book spells it out for you. I think a real twist would have been Ellie living but maybe that is just me wanting her to have survived.

I was also very disturbed by the way Laurel talked about her other daughter, Hanna. “Laurel had never accepted Hanna as a consolation prize”…

”Laurel is about to say, Oh, she was much prettier than Hanna”…

”Hanna. Her middle child. The difficult one. The tiring one. The one she wouldn’t want to be stranded on a desert island with. And a terrible thought shot through her, so fast she barely registered it. It should be you missing and Ellie eating beans on toast.“

I mean what kind of mom thinks this way about her daughter? I understand she is grieving but it’s horrible. Extremely disturbing, IMO, and left unaddressed other than a half-ass voicemail apology.

It loses some serious points from me because I was disturbed by how Laurel talked and thought about her middle child and how the book never really addresses these thoughts. The ending was also very unsatisfying and lacked a feeling of justice.

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fraggle1982's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

minniepauline's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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dfriend12's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

bluelien's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

I was expecting more. This book was very predictable from the beginning, and I kept thinking it was the author's intention so that the reveal would hit all the better. Unfortunately, the reveal wasn't that big of a reveal for me. I didn't predict it to the t but my guess came very close. What I did like were the relationship dynamics, the character development and the writing! The plot was nice as well. I would've preferred if we didn't get the multiple timelines. I'm guessing the author wanted to create a tense atmosphere by letting us in on what happened before Laurel made her discoveries, but to me, this killed the suspense.

Content Warnings