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sammyshellstorm's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Minor: Animal death, Adult/minor relationship, Abandonment, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Violence
mayastone's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
- The crime, the victims come from wealthy/powerful families yet the investigation seems trivial and simplistic. That's not realistic, especially when you factor in Mariana stomping around unchecked.
- Mariana makes no sense. Everyone wants her, two men kiss her without permission, yet "she's ugly." She was allowed to interfere in an ongoing murder investigation with one person actively helping her get involved. From the get go, she was obsessed with Fosca and that obsession was never fully addressed. The rage scene where she physically assaulted him, wtf? Afterwards she was interviewed before being asked to leave, and then nothing else came of it...??
- Sebastian is painted as the perfect husband and is a heavy ghost looming over everything. Then the twist came and I didn't like it. So all this time "Mr. Perfect" was abusing Zoe and had an elaborate plan to kill Mariana and Mariana didn't notice anything? This man with sever issues, judging by his parts in the story, and a trained psychotherapist didn't clue in to anything?? And that's supposed to be accepted because she has daddy issues??
- Theo showing up was annoying, I especially hated how this book decided that Mariana was partially responsible for Theo finding the girl in the silent patient.
- Fred, of course he just falls in love with Mariana for no reason and he has premonitions (again, wtf??).
- Henry, was all that necessary. Really, we needed to read about a patient that Mariana couldn't maintain a professional relationship with, mutilating himself in front of her and stalking her?? What was the point of all that, and of course he too is male.
- Fosca, how the hell did he get away with keeping a private group of students hanging around him unchecked. In the secret history it's highlighted that the school is a special school and the group is mixed gendered. This seems like a regular university so how did that fly??
- The Maidens, they didn't have any real purpose here. Okay Zoe and Seb targeted them to lure Mariana to her death, and they are all rich and come from powerful families, but that's it.
- I was eagerly waiting for the story to end. Despite being an audiobook, at 2x the speed, I was still bored. I genuinely wished I could make the book go by faster.
The author gets a solid 1 star for the following:
- Writing 2 terrible books and gaining acclaim. I cannot imagine how many unknown authors are out there, writing good books, only for this dude to get praised for writing trash, twice.
- The cover. If I can find this for about $1 (or less) I'd buy it just for the cover. Wouldn't pay more than that though.
- Adding a book to my TBR plus I liked the quote on the postcards. I especially enjoyed the narrator reading the quotes in Greek first.
- This is the Stephanie Meyer and whoever wrote "50 shades of Grey" of this time. Good for the author.
Moderate: Death of parent, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Adult/minor relationship
vivmorris's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
3.0
Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence
emmm626's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
…….
I enjoyed this one, but the greek mythology aspect was a bit lost on me. It's interesting that the author has again chosen to make the protagonist a therapist. The group therapy theme felt a bit forced, and I'm not really sure how the inclusion of Henry, the unwell patient, really contributed to the story beyond painting Mariana as paranoid. He was just another red herring for me and I felt his storyline was lacking.
There seemed to be a lot of side characters who were thrown in as red herrings. This coupled with them all having similar backgrounds felt like lazy characterization, as it was a quick and easy way to create ambiguity in the "whodunit" storyline.
I had a feeling midway that Zoe had something to do with the murders, but wasn’t expecting Sebastian to have been in on it. I was sort of half expecting his death to have been faked and for him to pop up somehow, but I wasn't expecting that icky father-figure/daughter romance. That was really gross. To me, it came across as lazy that Zoe acted pretty normal through 90% of the book and suddenly flipped a switch. Not my favorite trope. Sure, she likely had all the pain and planning going on underneath, but it was surprising that the woman who raised her, a therapist, couldn't see through her if she was indeed faking her grief. The idea that all those murders among the Maidens were just to cover up Mariana's murder was outlandish. It seemed silly for Zoe to ruin her life and go through all that effort to kill Mariana when Sebastian was already dead.
The letters/journal entries were confusing but kept me guessing as to who was writing them. However, like I said, giving all the male characters similar troubled backgrounds felt like lazy characterization. There could have been better ways to make others (Fred, Fosca, Henry, Julian, etc) appear guilty. The letters being written by Sebastian came out of left field for me. Unless I missed it, there was no mention of his childhood or abuse from his parents, making the other characters' backgrounds feel entirely pointless. But perhaps that’s the point, otherwise we would have suspected him.
I wish there had been more resolution to the Fred storyline. Did his premonition of proposing to Mariana and her saying yes come true? I want to believe it did. The inclusion of the Silent Patient characters was cheeky. It’s interesting that Mariana saw some sort of darkness in Theo, considering how things play out in that book. I almost wish that thought was explored a little further in her head. It felt like he was really forced in as a character, but then kind of glossed over. Why was it necessary to have two forensic psychologists--Julian AND Theo? The crossover with The Silent Patient would have been more believable if Theo was more of a main character as opposed to just a cameo.
The book was good, but it felt contrived and scattered. The characters were very one-dimensional and I think their arcs were weak.
Graphic: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Animal death and Infidelity
beware of student/teacher tropejunkyard's review against another edition
- 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
Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Violence
emilianordland's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Blood, Death, and Mental illness
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Incest, Infidelity, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, and Violence
tothelibraryandbeyond's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
Once again Michaelides has completely shocked me with the ending. I really thought that I might be able to figure it out having read The Silent Patient. But nope!! The only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars was that some of the characters seemed to be just thrown into the plot for distraction and didn’t make much sense to me. If there was more resolution/explanation for these characters in the ending, it wouldn’t have felt so rushed. But that’s just personal preference!
I loved that some characters from The Silent Patient were thrown in there. That was an unexpected little nugget to find while reading.
I’m already looking forward to the next book! Maybe I can figure it out this time.
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Stalking, and Violence
courtsbooks's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic relationship, and Violence
mmikadze's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? No
3.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Incest, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Sexual assault
joramous's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship