Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - Tiny Pretty Things

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Tiny Pretty Things by Dhonielle Clayton, Sona Charaipotra

2 reviews

ravensandlace's review

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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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danaslitlist's review

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dark mysterious fast-paced

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

2.0

I was on board with this book until 80, where some red flags popped up and then at 90% my fears were confirmed that yes, the book was going in that direction. I don’t appreciate the one Black character (arguably the main character) being absolutely gaslit and abused, especially when the book tries to make commentary on the racism black ballerinas face in the industry, only for her to really just suffer at the end.

It just felt mean and not rewarding. If the ending had been different this wouldn’t have been a problem but the last 10% buried my hopes.

This books also tries to cover some really dark and heavy topics but doesn’t give enough time to flesh them out and feels like a cop out.

Probably won’t be picking up book 2 (I thought this was a stand-alone but apparently not). Honestly this should’ve been one book with some edits done to cut back on parts that drag.

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