Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

7 reviews

blankpageben's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This book broke me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Cancer, Death, Emotional abuse, and Child death

slaywithsteph's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

I knew I was gonna cry, and I did, and my heart is broken.

If you liked the movie, you’ll like this, too. The movie cut out a lot about the characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, Cancer, Medical content, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Grief, and Drug use

Minor: Alcoholism

giuliana_ferrari's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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

3.0

This book is an interesting ethical discussion on the implications of engineering a baby to serve as your child's donor. And although the borderline obsessive reasonings from the mother of the dying child are exposed in subtle and not so subtle moments, I felt like the author didn't want to take it as far as agreeing that Sara was in fact a bad mother. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but both mother and father made it clear throughout the book their terrible choices that led 

to a young man becoming an arsonist

  and a younger child becoming nothing more than a petri dish to save the other sister's life. No matter how strongly they tried to defend themselves in their narratives, they neglected their older child for the sake of the sick one and literally designed a baby to serve a specific purpose.  That's why I'm so bothered by the ending:

Anna dies so Kate can live, and suddenly the mother is all grieving and suffering and wishing she could have Anna back, although she slapped her child for suing them and ignored and neglected her son

. Although I understand their situation was a terrible, unpredictable, emotionally exhausting one,  the family basically gave me a crash course in what not to do when you have more than one child and one is severely ill. And in all of this the author seemed content in defending the parents and voicing that a mother would do anything for their child, even if that means being a terrible parent. On and all the book could have gone to a deeper discussion of morals and rights of choice, but instead focused a bit too much on the soap-opera moments of cancer devastating a white middle-class family with religious undertones. Am I being unsympathetic? Maybe. But it could have been much more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Cancer, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Child death

jenna_justi2004's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Cursing, Child death, Death, Drug use, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Body horror, Car accident, Blood, Cancer, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Vomit, Grief, and Medical content

crystalxqueer's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer and Child death

Moderate: Car accident, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Gaslighting and Pregnancy

jenn_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-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

1.0

Every adult in this book is awful and Sara can go straight to hell.

The end is monstrously stupid. It's like M. Night Shyamalan for middle aged white ladies. The ending definite affects my assessment of this whole entire book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Medical content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcohol and Drug use

Medical consent issues, Toxic parental relationship,

Car accident

,

Seizure

fukkinfiend's review against another edition

Why do they try and romanticize a clearly abusive mother lol... I understand that unlikeable characters don't necessarily make it a bad book - but her excerpts in the book just put me off.
Did get to the ending - didn't make it better personally. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse