Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton

7 reviews

odeliaroav's review against another edition

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dark 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

3.75

The Good:
  • Main character is flawed
  • Loved the sick weird stuff she kept doing
  • Main character's backstory is relatable (?) or at the very least it makes you understand her better
  • The characters are all tied together in a complex way
  • No huuuuge plot twists but there is one good one
The Bad:
  • It could/should have been trimmed. There are too many extra details that I don't feel like they are necessary for either advancing the plot nor fleshing the characters out.
  • I'm unsure where the "climax" of the story is, if there is one. I guess the bathroom scene could be a climax, but it didn't feel very dramatic?
  • The ending was okay, decent, but left me wanting a bit more drama

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emmdashed's review against another edition

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
A lot of talk about how Juliette is unlikeable, which is absolutely fair. She makes it very hard to sympathize with her a lot of the time. That being said I couldn't help but think that if the genders were reversed and the MC was significantly more sexually aggressive that it would drive the Dark Romance BookTok Girlies absolutely feral. 

But we're probably not ready for that conversation. 

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howboutjane's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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

This book is a special kind of unhinged. Think "You" but less stabby stabby more bat guano cray. It was delightfully disturbing though a bit drawn out and solely focused on the unstable FMC.

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lizzieinmt's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Fairly interesting POV, the plot was rather slim and mainly relied on our interest in the main character to keep the story moving but it makes an entertaining thriller that's written well. 

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em_gauts's review against another edition

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mysterious 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

1.0


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juliarenae's review against another edition

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dark 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

3.0

The ending fell flat. I was hoping for more. I wish it was faster paced and had more strong reactions from the secondary characters. I was also hoping they would get more of the Julius background and what caused her to have these obsessive tendencies.

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suneaters's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

A trashy, terrible book, but it is fun. We do get some pretty good narration from a highly unreliable narrator. Because Juliette is so unbalanced, we never know what she'll do next since the rules of society really don't mean much to her. The anticipation to when she'll see Nate again builds up, but it kind of fizzles when
they get vegas-married and Miss Price becomes Mrs. Goldsmith for a few months. I mean, if she had just chilled out, he probably would've come crawling back, right? And the backstory with William never seemed to mean much in the end. Her and Nate visit his grave and she tells him the story, but it never seems to mean much. None of the backstory feels satisfying enough for how much it was built up so I felt kind of disappointed about William and Bella. She called Juliette/Elizabeth some names in school and was a typical mean-girl, but we never get any in-scene moments where Bella is outwardly cruel to justify Juliette's fear of her and why she volunteers to muck around in the fields in the rain just to get away from her. I feel that a scene like that would've helped the reader understand her more.
I enjoyed our narrator despite not really sympathizing with her at all. Move on, girl. I've never been into the yandere trope, but she was an interesting choice for a protagonist. Nate was another issue. I don't really understand why she was so attached to him until
she reveals he's the guy she lost her virginity to by the river at her old boarding school. Obviously she became attached to the first person to really show affection to her and make her feel pretty and desirable.
So, overall pretty alright, but with some downsides. The ending was also unsatisfying to me.
So Juliette murders Tara–Nate's new girlfriend–by shoving her off a balcony and acting like Tara fell taking pictures. When Nate returns from his piloting job, Juliette is waiting for him. He doesn't protest or say anything. There was a lot of unrealistic behavior on his end. No way is he not calling the police on a girl who trapped him in a bathroom. Once his family got into it and they were on the plane, it all felt like a soap opera.
It just didn't do it for me, but I still enjoyed my time reading the book overall thanks to the strength of Juliette's unreliable narration.

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