Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Exodus by Kate Stewart

18 reviews

theycallmebookish's review

emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Cecilia annoyed me in the first book and she didn’t get better in this one. I still wanted to shake her and force her into therapy because WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GIRL!? It’s like when you tell a kid to not touch the stove because it’s hot and they run and touch the stove then are surprised that it’s hot. WHY DO YOU NOT LISTEN CECILIA!? I know Frenchmen are hot but cmon! I was a bit thrown when we jumped in time and was a bit confused and also concerned that Cecilia was still acting like a 19 year old but pretending to be an adult. Also, can we just have one relationship between same aged people? All of the relationships in this book have over like a 10 year age gap and the relationships start at 18-19. Maybe it’s because of what I do for a living but that just bothers me a bit. 

But the spice was spicing 🌶️

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Death of parent, Blood, Cancer, and Emotional abuse

chainsiren's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Stalking, Gun violence, Violence, Murder, Abandonment, Vomit, Bullying, Cursing, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

zc2's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

Listen the plot was good, great even but it put me in a 20 day reading slump simply because of how slow everything was. And once you read the main plot point 👀😭… all the timeline does is jump tremendously. Also it was just confusing to keep up with everything and who everyone was. Tobias really just crawled all over my nerves 🙄 like give me a break. I just wasn’t really entertained I guess. I much preferred the first book despite all the lingering secrets.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Death, Gaslighting, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, and Vomit

tiana_king's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

Despite her being 6 years older she spent most of the book being a whinny child. I get that she experienced something traumatic and then was cut off from everyone but lord she should’ve seen a therapist. Instead she self sabotaged at every opportunity. I’m confused on the back slide in quality this book had compared to the first. But I’m gonna read the last book anyway. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Death, Abandonment, Classism, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Child abuse, Violence, and Drug use

Minor: Stalking and Death of parent

kat1105's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug use, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Grief, Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Violence, Alcohol, and Blood

kyrstin_p1989's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Heart-breaking. I started this novel hating the protagonist but through the twist and turns of the story truly felt my love for her blossom. She grows up, so much, over the course of the book and that growth is realistic not contrived. The line that everyone on TikTok is devastated over doesn’t disappoint. This book was devastating on several levels but ended on a happy note. Excited to finish the series & get some closure for all the characters’ storylines. The one downside I noticed was some glaringly obvious misspellings that the editor missed but otherwise this book was so enjoyable to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Stalking, Violence, Vomit, Abandonment, Abortion, Cancer, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual violence

aalysad's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

I got two words for this book, daddy issues. BUT I absolutely loved it! This book broke me. I’m at a loss for words. I loved Cecelia with Dominic and Sean, but they had nothing on Tobias. This series is turning into a favorite no matter how toxic and sad. I feel like so much happened in this book. Also, audio was incredible 🤌🏻

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Physical abuse, Murder, Abortion, Blood, Death, Misogyny, War, Toxic relationship, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Violence

amanda_reads13's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

3.5

Exodus starts out where Flock ends. Enemies to lovers. 

She spent half of the book in a toxic relationship with Tobias and then the second half grovelling and begging for Tobias to take her back, blowing up her present life in the process. What I find really frustrating is her complete lack of growth and maturity. Six years later and she is still acting the same way she did when she was 19. Yes, she is pretty badass when it comes to her work, but she becomes a puddle around anyone in the Ravenhood. You would think that within that 6 years, she could have done some work on herself instead of just shoving it all down and ignoring it.

I appreciate that we finally figure out what the hell has been going on and get some background to the Ravenhood. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Abandonment, Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Sexual content

jen1804's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

1.5

This book is about 30 pages of answers and 400 pages of crap. I don’t know how this gets as many 4 and 5 star ratings as it does!?!?!?!? The number of times I wanted to DNF this book… absolute waste of my time.
I can’t understand how an author can write so many words and yet tell the reader nothing? This book is chaotic, repetitive, overly dramatic and all the characters are so angry and hostile all the time. It’s so poorly written that half the time I’ve not got a clue WHY they’re so angry because the whole thing is so evasive and their extreme emotions are rarely explained. The first 70% of this book is 100% a 1 star, it’s boring and the one bit of action which passes for interesting again doesn’t make sense at the time and what follows is more evasiveness, gahhhhh. All the relationships explored in this book are so toxic and the FMC is so pathetic, whiny and dislikable. It gains a 0.5 because at least I got given some answers at the end of this book to help explain what the hell has been going on. It has left me feeling as though the entirety of book one was redundant though and I’m not left satisfied with how it ends but I shall not be reading book three.
Satisfactory ending? Nope.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Toxic relationship, Blood, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Alcohol, Grief, and Vomit

ecravens's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Violence