Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

10 reviews

toniw315's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Minor: Suicide attempt and Abortion

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I thought this was interesting, and I'm excited to see the TV series version of it. Same comment that I've made about Ms. Pinborough before -

it just doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense to throw in supernatural elements into a very real-world story. It almost feels like not incredibly well-thought-out writing? Like there was no way to wrap the plot up in this world, so it has to enter the next?

 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Bullying, Forced institutionalization, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Drug use, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Gaslighting, Classism, Grief, and Gun violence

sapphirestorm's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Stalking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Pregnancy, Abortion, Infidelity, Addiction, Cursing, Death, Body shaming, Death of parent, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death

thecatsmum's review

dark 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? It's complicated

2.75

After coincidentally running into and snogging the man who turns out to be her new boss, single mother Louise has an affair with him, and begins an unlikely friendship with his wife. This story is told mostly in alternating Louise and Adele (the wife) POV chapters as the story unfolds.

Honestly, I think it would have been a better book if it was mostly told from Louise's POV for the first half to three quarters of the book or if Pinborough handled Adele's POV chapters better. It felt like the story lost part of its momentum by allowing the reader to know too much too soon.

A bit into the book I realised I had seen the miniseries that was based on the book a few years ago, and I wasn't impressed by the ending then, and I guess I wasn't now. So, despite the prose feeling decent, there were too many problems for me to rate this higher.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Murder, Death of parent, Death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Classism, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Ableism, Abortion, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Forced institutionalization

ashaye's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This. This is the book that got me out of a reading slump. I read this so fast. This is the book I have never shut up about. The way the POVs switch, the immediate with no warnings way that characters demeanors and tones change from friendly to absolutely cunning and mischievous. The constant cat and mouse and never knowing who to believe. Only for the second to last page to completely shock me beyond anything I have ever read. Pinborough’s mind is insane. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Mental illness, and Murder

moderate spoiler

abbs15norm's review against another edition

mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, and Toxic friendship

horrorghoul's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

3.5

TW: Drug use, animal dying (descriptive scenes), cheating spouse, death of parents, murder,

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book: Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.
Release Date: January 31st, 2017
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Pages: 307
Rating: 3.5 ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

What I Liked:
• Fast paced book
• You want to know what's going to happen

What I Didn't Like:
• I don't understand the point of breaking the book up with "Part one, part two... Etc..."
• The direction of this book
• The ending
• All the fucking wine! So many mentions!

Overall Thoughts: Talk about a book that can evoke do many different emotions in only 300 pages. On one hand you're cheering for Louise at the beginning to hating her by the end (she's honestly a shit person who seems to ditch her child even after he's been gone for a month) to Adele who you wonder what shit she's been through herself and why she's such an obsessive crazy bitch. By the ending you just feel bad that she got sucked into this mess.
The beginning of the book you fucking hate hate and hate David by the ending you want to hug him.

Have you every seen Hannibal Holocaust? So the story goes that the people making the film wanted to create something to shock people so badly. They added terrible scenes of animal killings as well as rape scenes. That's how I felt about this book. The author changes the book from a psychological thriller to a science fiction book. By the last few pages your maybe remembering this happening somewhere before but in a different way.... There's a movie starring Kate Hudson that's called The Skeleton Key; in that movie they use Hoodoo to switch bodies and keep body jumping. Oh then that final twist I didn't see coming but it didn't feel like it added anything. The way it's all described from Adele and David's pov it all seens so rushed and random. The way they both described Rob didn't lead anyone to think he loved David or even liked him. There's no way you woukd habe thought that. Plus the notebook left behind comes off like he's in Lust of Adele, but Louise mentioned that pages were torn out, so perhaps Adele aka Rob removed them so she didn't know. Dude that ending though just seemed so added at last minute. I looked back on the book and he just talks shit about him and doesn't even try to stick around when David came to the clinic to see Adele.

Final Thoughts: That ending thought it was going to make me love this book but nope.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Murder, Physical abuse, Stalking, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

bookishandlegal's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

This book was super gripping and I was intrigued the whole time. The buildup to the end was good and kept me engaged throughout. The story line was interesting and piecing together what was happening through alternating POVs between the two main characters and between the past and present worked really well. One big thing that I didn’t like was the constant emphasis and shaming over Louise’s weight. She’s described around a size 12, probably, which is a very average size but is constantly referred to as fat and heavy and talked about how much better she’ll look when she’s lost a few pounds. None of this set right with me and it seemed wholly unnecessary. There was also a few graphic instances of animal abuse that seemed totally unnecessary. 

I also didn’t really care for the ending. It honestly just didn’t make sense. I know very little/almost nothing about lucid dreaming but having to suspend belief and buy that a person switched bodies with two different people throughout their lifetime by lucid dreaming was too much for me. I somewhat enjoyed the twist that Adele had really been Rob the whole time, but it’s all just a bit too much for me to buy and made the book seem kinda hookey and idk, just weird. Maybe I’m totally missing something with lucid dreaming but this just seemed too far fetched for me

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Alcoholism, Addiction, Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent

gwendolyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Alcoholism

augustolive's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicide, and Toxic relationship