Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Tiny Pretty Things

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andreiaoh's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

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kbergsten's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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aniqah_w's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.75

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I started reading this book for the sole reason of wanting a story with a lot of ~drama~. That's not something I want very often, but for some inexplicable reason, I was just really in the mood for it. Unfortunately, I ended up disliking "Tiny Pretty Things" for the most part - though I do have to admit that it did deliver on the drama.

The story was told from three POVs: Bette, the white, rich, blond girl who was used to getting what she wanted; June, a half-Korean girl who was sick of having to be the understudy and really needed an important role, lest her mother pull her out of school; and Gigi, the new student, a Black girl from California with a sunny disposition and a hole in her heart. And also a buttload of talent.

Out of those three characters, Gigi was the only one who was even slightly bearable. Bette and June were both more on the psychotic side and pulled pranks on Gigi that were simply just horrifying. The fact that two out of three main characters were unlikeable and infuriating meant that reading was absolutely not fun at all. Most of the time, I just wanted to put all of these kids, but especially Bette and June, in therapy. They could use some of that. I'm aware that they weren't meant to be characters you root for wholeheartedly, and some of their behaviour could be explained with their personal lives - for example, Bette's mother was abusive and pushed her to be as good as her sister, and June's mother only expected the best from June, or she'd have to go to a non-ballet school. Of course families like that will make you be more ambitious and maybe resort to desperate measures. But that didn't make my reading experience more enjoyable.

Plus, their behaviour - the bullying, the pranks, the gaslighting coming from Bette - was completely normalised at their school. No one ever stopped and wondered if maybe, just maybe, Gigi had a reason to be upset about

FINDING GLASS IN HER SHOE OR SEEING HER BUTTERFLIES DEAD IN HER ROOM

; instead, everyone immediately believed Bette when she said that Gigi was simply crazy and had lost her mind. The pranks were just things that have always happened, even in the past, and will continue in the future, and not even the teachers did anything about it. Like, these weren't things that happened outside of school where teachers wouldn't have noticed them. They happened in class. They made Gigi scream loud enough that others came running. But no one intervened. Ever. It was simply infuriating.

Despite all these pranks happening and the personal drama between the characters, I felt like nothing really happened? There was so much repetition in this book of the same plot points, over and over and over. June said she didn't want to be an understudy anymore and was jealous of Gigi. Pulled some pranks. Had to deal with her own bully. Bette hating Gigi because she'd "stolen" her boyfriend and her role that was "rightfully hers". And Gigi being a bit naive and constantly just talking about her new boyfriend - who was

Bette's ex

- and how horny he made her. And then the pranks, which also pretty much happened the same way every time. The book barely had to offer anything, and for a book so dramatic, I sure was bored a lot.

The book did have romantic story lines for all three main characters, but none of them were done well. Gigi and Alec were simply boring - and also annoying, since he never truly believed her and barely supported her. Alec was as interesting as stale bread, so it was always hard for me to understand why so many people, girls and guys alike, seemed to be into him. Was it a lack of other options? Who's to say. In any way, I never cared about them. They were also fairly instalove-y; it felt like Charaipotra and Clayton were more interested in seeing them as a couple than two people falling in love, so they rushed through the development of their relationship.

The same thing happened to June and her love interest, Jayhe. There was barely any development of their relationship; you just had to believe at a certain point that June was in love with him. And Jayhe was so severely underdeveloped and one-dimensional that he could've just as well been a piece of cardboard.

Lastly, the relationship between Bette and Henri was absolutely horrfying in my eyes, because Henri was extremely predatory.

He basically sexually assaulted Bette several times, but by a certain point, you had to believe that Bette was in love with him? That she felt safe with him? Even though he pretty much blackmailed her into hooking up with him because he knew things about her she didn't want out?

And the authors just pretended like their entire relationship was consensual, even though it was clearly not. This entire story line was infuriating.

That's something that happened weirdly frequently in this book: Charaipotra and Clayton took a serious topic like sexual assault or paedophilia, introduced it into the story, but then made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. Like, one of the teachers was straight up rumoured to

have had a relationship with Bette's sister when she was in school

, and instead of having the characters mistrust him, they ... tried to do the same as

Adele?

The authors seemed to belittle the problem completely, and also put the blame on it happening 100% on the girls, like they were the bad guys in this story. It was extremely gross.

In the book, there were two queer characters, a gay guy and a closeted lesbian. And I absolutely HATED the way they were portrayed.

The gay guy, Will, was Alec's best friend, and his sexuality was weaponised against him by Bette several times, because obviously, that's what good friends do. They threaten to out you - and then proceed to do just that more than once throughout the book. And no one ever called Bette out on that, either. Plus, Will seemed like a walking, talking version of "gay tragic love story," because the authors just flat-out refused to give him a love interest who can reciprocate his feelings. Why have a gay guy be in love with another queer dude if he can just as well crush on the only two straight guys in his grade? And be unhappily in love with his best friend?

The lesbian character infuriated me even more, because she was EXTREMELY villainised. She had a lot of internalised homophobia and hated herself for being gay - subtextually, she never actually said it out loud -, and instead of having her come to terms with it and maybe, just maybe, apologize to her victim - she was a bully -, she was bad the entire time. I swear to God, if she's still a bad guy by the end of the second book ...

Moreover, another problem I had with the book was how unresolved everything was by the end. I expected that at least some of the plot points - of which there were many - would be wrapped up, but nope. Absolutely nothing got resolved.

Do we learn who pushed Gigi in front of the car? Not really. Do we learn what Eleanor’s deal was? Not really. Does Will get a happy ending? Not really. Does Sei-Jin get put in her place? Not really.

Everything's still out in the open. It was so unsatisfying!

Lastly, I also really didn't enjoy the writing; there were so many extremely weird similes that made no sense, and they took me out of the story constantly. It wasn't the worst writing style I've ever seen, but it certainly wasn't one I enjoyed.

Now let's quickly talk about things I did enjoy. First of all, I liked learning more about the ballet world. I do think they focused a bit too much on the negative parts and didn't elaborate enough on the positives, but they did show the way the girls' day-to-day lives worked.

I also liked how diverse the story was? Especially Gigi being Black and June being half-Korean were huge parts of the story, and the way racism worked in the dance industry was called out or highlighted a lot. There could've been a little bit more, to be honest, but I did appreciate what we did get. There were also some topics that the authors did talk about well (as like, opposed to sexual assault and paedophilia), like eating disorders and addiction (specifically pill popping). They went extremely into detail especially about eating disorders and body shaming, and I liked that part.

Overall, though, I vastly disliked the story. It was mostly boring and repetitive, the romances were either bland and underdeveloped or problematic, and the ending was very unsatisfying. I will pick up the sequel out of sheer curiosity, though, so I didn't hate all of it with a passion.

Content Warnings

ashleyreads88's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

This book is filled with drama and it was entertaining. It was also dark and gritty, and I really enjoyed that aspect. I loved how diverse the cast of characters are in this book. This book was so different than anything that I have ever read and I enjoyed it.

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