Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Tiny Pretty Things by Dhonielle Clayton, Sona Charaipotra

10 reviews

haleybre's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Addiction, Bullying, Homophobia, Blood, Violence, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Vomit, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Toxic friendship

ravensandlace'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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Title: Tiny Pretty Things 

Author: Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

Genre: Young Adult Thriller

Format: hardback library book

Series: Tiny Pretty Things (#1)

Star Rating: 3.5 stars

tw: underage drinking, disordered eating, vomiting, pill usage, subtle racism, bullying, infidelity, inappropriate student/teacher relationship, violence

I wanted to like this more than I did. That seems to be a pretty common theme for me as of late. I think I might have too high expectations. Goodreads synopsis compared it to Black Swan meets Pretty Little Liars, both of which I love. Black Swan is one of my favorite movies. I did see elements of both Black Swan and Pretty Little Liars but I just found myself having a hard time connecting with this book. 

My main problem was the amount of just pure hate and vitriol. Holy crap, some of these girls truly hated each other and it felt really off. In June’s storyline, a girl hates her and the reason she hates her seems incredibly ridiculous. I understand that the world of ballet is incredibly competitive and tense but is there really so much hate? It just made my stomach churn with how much bullying there was. 

This book is very much a slow burn. There is a lot of mystery behind it but the pacing of those mysteries felt off. We literally learned all the secrets the ballerinas had by the middle of the book. So then we were just left with three teen girls on a path to major self-destruction, which was pretty heartbreaking to read. 

This review is going in a negative direction. I did like the book, for the most part. I appreciated that two out of the three main characters weren’t white. Gigi was Black and June was half-Korean. I know the world of ballet is not diverse so it was very lovely to see that. Even if those characters experienced racism because of it. 

This book also portrays both the brutal world of eating disorders and the extremes one would go to get parental approval. While I don’t have an eating disorder, I think it portrayed what it's like to have one pretty well. The scenes were pretty graphic and honestly hard to read. The same goes for parental approval. These girls have so much going on with them. 

Overall, this wasn’t my favorite book but I did enjoy it. I am a huge sucker for the world of ballet. I didn’t know a lot of what they were talking about in terms of the dance moves but I’m still obsessed. I will be continuing with the series because this book left on a cliffhanger and I’m curious to know what's going on. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Classism, Fatphobia, Grief, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Drug use, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Racism, Hate crime, and Medical content

why_en's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious 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

3.5

i barely remember what happened lol honestly it got boring in the middle but picked right back up with the last few chapters but damn Bette and June are really bitches wth so I don't feel bad about what's happening to them lol. the only people i was really rooting for were my girl Gigi and Alec, even Will oml and I did love how cunning Henri is but he's still creepy.

it also took me longer than usual to finish this cuz maybe because it's contemporary? also i dance and it gave me lowkey PTSD since i went to an arts high school and was close to the dance department students so the characters remind me so much of some of them 🤡

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Classism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

Moderate: Stalking, Toxic friendship, Infidelity, Animal death, and Medical content

Minor: Xenophobia

allbookedupwithrosie's review against another edition

emotional lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Eating disorder, Body shaming, Car accident, and Sexual content

Minor: Abandonment and Adult/minor relationship

ruesreading's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Toxic friendship, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

chickpea19's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Racism, Vomit, Animal death, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, Cursing, Eating disorder, and Sexual content

solaria's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Very engaging and creative. I enjoyed having the different perspectives of Gigi, Bette and June who are all unreliable narrators in their own way as they explore different circumstances that none of them have encountered before. The twists were very good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Drug abuse and Drug use

Minor: Sexual content

anisans's review

dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Gun violence, and Violence

Minor: Homophobia

itsmeyseniab's review

emotional slow-paced

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

2.5

I'm BUMMED.

When I think of the plot the first word that comes to mind is repetitive. While this novel is relatively easy to read, it took me a lot longer to finish it than I anticipated going into it. After I read the description I thought this was going to be a new favorite, but I'm so disappointed. This entire book was just so over the top, which is fine and great escapism, but I just did not care about what happened/what was happening at all. Our main conflict between the three girls had so much promise, but it just fell flat - it all just felt as though the intense hatred they had for one another had no real reason behind it other than "the new girl is getting all the attention because she's a great dancer OMG so horrible" ... come on. It's as though it didn't dawn on anybody that hey, maybe people get the parts that they get because they're talented.

The characters... YIKES. I love character-driven stories. Even if I'm not enjoying the novel at all, I can always find at least ONE character that I care about. YA'LL I STRUGGLED TO FIND ONE IN THIS (and still haven't if I'm being honest). I wasn't sure which character I was meant to root for, and can confidently say I didn't enjoy any of their storylines 100%. Gigi, the new girl, was way too naive for my liking. June's chip on her shoulder got really repetitive to read about. Bette's constant denial of her being a bully made her a really terrible "villain". I appreciated how the authors attempted to share the good and bad sides of each character but they were so underdeveloped and I simply did not care about any of them. The romances were jarring, the girls' scenes with each other were so lackluster, and ultimately I think the three POVs hurt the novel more than it helped, not because it was confusing, but because it made all of our experiences with each character very surface-level. Every time I felt as though I was finally peeling back the layers of each character the chapter would end and immediately jump into the next POV.

All that being said, I am VERY interested to check out the series once it comes out on Netflix! I think this story would translate way better on film than it did on paper. I will say that I can see why it is described as a hybrid between Black Swan and Pretty Little Liars (but I'd recommend those two works WAY before I recommended this novel unfortunately :/).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Racism, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, Pedophilia, Violence, and Child abuse

revenge porn

andreiaoh's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Bullying

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Vomit, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Racism and Sexual content