Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

88 reviews

bookishchaos's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Very far fetched but entertaining.
I enjoyed most of the book but the ending was pretty anticlimactic and confusing/weird. It felt like a Grady Hendrix type of story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Torture, and Mental illness

Moderate: Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

Minor: Child abuse

eliya's review

challenging dark mysterious sad 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

fuck me, man. this was tough. i read this book just in time for a book club to discuss it, and i didn’t cry until the acknowledgements. 
sarah gailey’s writing is so incredibly intimate, a lot of reading this felt like guilt dripping down my back mixed with the cold nakedness of being alone with the words. 

pg. 320:
“We didn’t ask to be born, did we? We did t ask to have to soak up their sings and their expectations. All we ever did was love them, and all they ever did was hurt us.”
…”He loved us, though,” … “more than anything.”
“Oh, he loved us both as best as he could,” … “He tried to build us strong and steady and whole. But he didn’t keep us safe. He didn’t know how to shelter us from all the hurt that was waiting, because he thought that hurt was the shape of love.”

(personal reflection)  When my dad died, and after, I kept thinking of all the guilty memories I have, all the times I’d let him down. I didn’t get to know my dad as a whole human being before, but I know he loved us. My childhood sucked and I was abused and he did his best to love us. My mom could never understand what she did wrong, when we talked about her abuse, she just gave the reasoning that that’s how she thought to love us, that’s how you raise kids. My whole family thinks that love is the shape of hurt. 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Toxic friendship, Cursing, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Murder, Torture, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Violence, and Child abuse

Minor: Vomit

siobhangrace14's review

dark mysterious tense medium-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

Gave 3 🌟 as tbh I don't really know what I just read.

Those final chapters of the book were just completely bizarre.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Blood

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, and Child abuse

ceruleanseas's review

dark emotional slow-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: Blood, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Abandonment, Child abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

alarrabee's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? No

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Abandonment, Mental illness, Child abuse, Murder, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Body horror, Bullying, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

aexileigh's review

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Vomit, Murder, Child abuse, and Blood

schnaucl's review

challenging dark mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

This was well written, but not my favorite of Sarah Gailey's novels.

It was strange to me that even as a child Vera never once thought that murder was wrong.  I get that she thought her dad was saving the men he killed, but she was old enough to understand what murder was and that it was wrong.   And dealing with the tension between love of her father and what it would mean to turn him in might have been an interesting thing to explore.

I did think having the house as an actual physical thing that protected her (and needed protection in return) was interesting.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

bonniejpg's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Torture, Violence, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, and Child abuse

erica_reads_things's review

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

4.75

I have to say that this is one of the creepiest books that I have ever read, just based on how the author writes alone. You know when you're watching a horror movie and something is happening on the screen that seems normal but shifts into something horrifying so seamlessly that it takes you time to realize what is even happening? That's how this author writes and it kept me on my toes the entire time. I'd give a full 5 stars but the plot gets a bit slow at times. Very good atmosphere of just dread throughout though. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gore, and Body horror

Moderate: Child abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, and Death

birbmcbirb's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

4.5

The queer urge to have your darkest side seen, and still be embraced. 

The ending of this book was amazing, and the slow burn in the beginning makes sense in hindsight, but I agree with other readers who struggled through the first part. The growing tension is subtle, in the same way it often is in an abusive home where the abuse is long stretches of neglect between blow ups. That ending though will almost definitely make this a book I revist from time to time. A love letter for everyone who grew up with the darkness as their only friend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Murder, Excrement, Violence, and Body horror

Moderate: Sexual assault