Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

39 reviews

mccormicke2's review

dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Rape, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Eating disorder, Body shaming, Child abuse, Fatphobia, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Abortion, Classism, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexism, Terminal illness, Gun violence, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Grief

katierosecrane's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

This book never truly hooked me but I can understand how people would love this book. The concept is very interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Classism, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Gun violence, Fatphobia, Infertility, Forced institutionalization, Sexual content, Alcohol, Abortion, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Cursing, Sexual violence, Body shaming, and Eating disorder

erinvasut's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Dysphoria, Grief, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Violence, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Bullying, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Alcoholism, Chronic illness, and Child abuse

Minor: Abortion

jasminmarks's review

dark 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, and Fatphobia

opplecopter's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

If you like books that read like a Lifetime movie, you’ll love this one. I was expecting a thriller and just got a drama. I’m surprised this book was so popular in my book groups because I honestly wish I had left this as a DNF a long time ago. The first 100+ pages is about Amber Patterson and told from her perspective. I almost put the book down at this point because this part felt absolutely endless. Amber is a 20 something year old pathological liar who rambles on and on about how unfair her life is because she doesn’t have loads of money, material possessions, connections, popularity, power, influence, etc. Poor Amber is just a victim in her own eyes and she goes above and beyond to portray herself as such. She’s whiny, selfish, immature, and extremely annoying. Amber is determined to have a life of privilege, wealth, designer clothes, expensive jewelry, and being admired by those around her along with a husband who is not only loaded but who will basically be putty in her hands. She “accidentally” meets Daphne Parrish. A beautiful woman in her late 30s who has all these things. Daphne has a perfect life, a perfect family, and a perfect husband, Jackson, who adores her. She has an exquisite home, a staff, a charity foundation, and more. Even Daphne’s home, closets, cabinets, everything is perfectly organized, placed, equally spaced, and spotless. Amber of course is furious. How dare someone else have nice things while she lives in an apartment, right? So, Amber targets Daphne with a plan to ingratiate herself into her life and ultimately to take her place as Mrs. Parrish. Lots of lies, scandal, manipulation, and secrets come out as this story progresses. Overall, I found this very boring. There was no excitement. It all felt very contrived. Yeah there was a twist that I found to be ok,  and people get their just deserts, but it fell short for me. Once the twist was revealed, it felt like this book dragged on and on and at 400+ pages, that was a lot of dragging. It didn’t leave an impression on me and the 3 stars I gave was being generous.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Body shaming, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Gun violence and Forced institutionalization

kaylamarie11's review against another edition

tense fast-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Body shaming, Rape, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Sexual violence, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Abortion, Child abuse, Chronic illness, and Forced institutionalization

msekulich's review

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Toxic friendship, Infertility, Abortion, Body shaming, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, and Terminal illness

twisted_luce's review

medium-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

2.0

This book started well but overall I found it to be a bit “meh” 
It plateaus quite quickly, I really hoped it would pick up the pace but when it did finally get into it, it was just OK and then over. 


Side note - I couldn’t get past the plot hole that she tried on every pair of her knickers whilst she was picking the kids up. EVERY PAIR, as a reader we already know that this is a whole bedroom sized closet, so I could just imagine her frantically getting in and out of tons of pairs of pants like some sort of frenzied world record attempt.

Finally, a big “boooo” for the internalised misogyny- the idea that a woman deserves any kind of abusive treatment is not going to sit well. Granted the character was hideous but justice could have been served without horrific domestic abuse. 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Emotional abuse, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Bullying and Eating disorder

Minor: Child abuse

Trigger warning for eating disorders and domestic / financial / sexual / emotional abusive

chelseamayxxx's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This is such a weird book and so much happens in it that you don’t really understand the plot of the story or what’s happening that much as it’s told from 2 people. I figured out that the husband was a narcissist bully who hated against women and children if there were girls. The 1st part of the story she is so obsessed with the family that it gets too much to read and the 2nd part of the story she is too scared to leave her abusive husband so the story did match up towards the end of the last 30 pages I would so. But this story takes so many twists and turns that is hard to enjoy this book. I got half way and wanted to give up reading this book but I was too addictive to finding out what finally happens in the story that I kept reading it sadly. The characters I absolutely  hated them all though the book they were annoying and they kept moaning and winging about stuff that it gets too insufferable. Xxx

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Fatphobia, Bullying, Child abuse, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Abortion

pookiee's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

1.5

The Wife Between Us is a much better version of the same story; read that instead.

a lot of reviews mention plot twists, but I only read one (

that daphne finally realized what amber was up to and wanted her to ’steal’ her husband

). the rest is just a typical story and filling in of the details of the twist. really, the same events we read in pov1 are gone over in pov2 when we could easily assume 2’s thoughts, having found out the twist.

the writing is very bland; everything is “She did this. Then, she did that.” with no interesting figurative language. the simplicity makes it easy to speed through the book at least.

the characters are supremely boring, too. it’s crystal clear whom readers are supposed to root for/against and these people have no life outside of being virtuous/villainous and rich/poor. 

the pov in part i is exhaustingly bitter and part ii is filled with tactless descriptions of abuse just to have us pity one chara and hate the other even more. this is not a deeply psychological book or character study, it’s emotional manipulation with total caricatures and major, laughable plot conveniences.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Chronic illness, Infertility, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Rape, Terminal illness, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, and Body shaming

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, Abortion, and Child abuse

Minor: Blood