Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

6 reviews

shannonredwine8's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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sldibened's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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annasannotations's review against another edition

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

4.5


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minimicropup's review against another edition

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

3.0

2 stars + 1 star bump-up 

Main POV: 
  • A married parent with the ‘perfect’ family. They are a wealthy philanthropist dedicated to cystic fibrosis awareness and funding. They seem open-minded, docile, spoiled, and naïve due to loneliness.
  • A single adult in their 20s working in a real estate office while going for the long-con in a self-concocted scheme to infiltrate the philanthropist’s life, although we don’t know why. It could be revenge; it could be because they are completely unhinged.
 
Atmosphere 😒: Detached, uneasy, vindictive
  • Set mostly in a wealthy suburb near Manhattan, NY
 
Cred Rating 🤪: OTT
  • On the ‘juicy’ soap opera side of over-the-top. Not a story you want to go in overthinking or looking for meaningful commentary or symbolism from. 
 
Growls and Howls 🐺: 
  • I don’t mind OTT, but the SLOW OTT is hard to pull off, so although it was an interesting plot in theory, it fell apart in execution for me. I think it could have benefitted from some cuts because the slowness wasn’t contributing to the story, it was stalling it out. We have the story delivered through overreliance on hold-backs (“If only they knew what I was about to do”), overly descriptive scenes about the clothing and appearances of everyone, and a lot of MC internal monologue that involves reminding the reader of a goal or thought we are already are familiar with because it was previously revealed to us…sometimes multiple times!
  • There are some problematic tropes in this book, but I think that’s forgivable with OTT/soap opera type plots. It’s like angrily therapeutic. Someone plotting to steal your life and destroy you in the process? Wouldn’t it be nice to find out they self-destructed? Yes, we have women throwing themselves at a man’s feet, being toxic to other women, and using each other to further their own goals. However, this plot used severe physical, emotional, sexual, AND verbal abuse as a major revenge element. It felt icky. But, we also have stories glorifying female serial killers, so just go in to this one aware that it falls into that territory. 
 
Oops 🙃⭐️: The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (April 26, 2022) is technically a retelling of this work (opinion varies as to whether it was plagiarism, inspiration, or coincidental). The plot and MCs are different between the two, but the plot devices are the same, hence why I would say re-telling (some of my fav books are, so it's not a dig). The main difference is Frieda McFadden’s work is not so deeply in the OTT realm and doesn't rely on the abuse as justice trope. Regardless of where you stand on the matter, The Last Mrs Parrish was first (Oct 17, 2017) and I recognize that I knew the plot elements going in because I read The Housemaid first, which diluted the twists for me. So, I’m going to rate this an extra star to account for that bias.
 
Reading Journey 🙄😬: Sitting through a play when you had high expectations for it. Slow, then repetitive, then even slower, then bam-bam-bam wrap-up. My applause is for finally getting to leave, not for the performance.  
 
Mood Reading Match-Up:
  • Juicy, behind closed doors domestic thriller
  • B****, I’m gonna steal your life trope
  • Slow, scheming, long-con sociopathic mind
  • Guilty-pleasure soap opera revenge plots
 
Vibes: 😬😏😑
 
Content Heads-Up: Toxic friendships and relationships. Rape and sexual abuse (descriptive, on page). Physical, verbal, emotional abuse against spouses and children (on page). 
 
Format: Kindle Unlimited

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soshereads_'s review against another edition

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dark 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? No

2.0

The ending is what made this two stars for me. 

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saraellenme's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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