Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

60 reviews

lexihworth's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Sexual assault, Child death, Sexual violence, Mental illness, Grief, Alcohol, Drug use, Rape, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Chronic illness, and Death

Moderate: Medical content, Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Pregnancy, and Violence

Minor: Child abuse

kellybronwynt's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Sexual assault, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Rape

Moderate: Drug use, Stalking, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Car accident, Death, Trafficking, Medical content, Murder, Terminal illness, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Self harm

emoxxecologist's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I enjoyed this immensely, even though I had no idea what I was in for. 

This tale is set in a world where Peter Pan and Wendy were real.  The main character is Wendy’s granddaughter, Holly.  The story focuses on her, along with her 2 children and mother. 

Peter isn’t a good guy in this one- he’s far from it. He’s the reason the story takes a dark turn- this book didn’t come with any trigger warnings for me and I was very surprised.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Stalking, Car accident, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Terminal illness, Violence, Drug use, Grief, Murder, and Rape

katymat18's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, and Child death

Moderate: Grief, Car accident, and Kidnapping

tess1912's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Cursing, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcohol, Car accident, and Death

s_dima's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

If you like twisted fairytales, or books that are mysterious and leave you asking tons of questions throughout, you'll like this book! My only complaint is that there wasn't a ton of explanation on the world building, like what gave Peter Pan his abilities and why he turned out the way he did, or what is the "true" story that happened to Wendy? So you may not get all the answers at the end, but still a compelling retelling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Child death, Rape, and Car accident

Minor: Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, and Chronic illness

taylor13's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Kidnapping, Blood, and Rape

Minor: Car accident, Drug use, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

renmarie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

this book was so good. so so so good. like the ending just felt like a warm hug and i loved the characters. i’m so happy that i read this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Child death, Drug use, Death, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Physical abuse

kaelizaco's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Rape, Child death, Death, Drug use, Confinement, Drug abuse, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Car accident, Kidnapping, and Murder

micaelamariem's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• 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? It's complicated

2.0

I was so excited to read this book even though I put it off for so long. (It was my BOTM pick a year ago). I love fairy tale retellings and I love when they’re dark and gritty too, like a homage to the originals which were meant to be dark and gritty. But this book was mostly disappointing. It took me a while to decide how to rate this, because some of it was actually well-written and I did feel like I was in New York and London. 

But there were things I really didn’t like and it wasn’t until reading the other reviews that I could put words to it. I will say that a main complaint of others is not of mine—BUT still check trigger warnings. There is SA in the book but I thought it was going to be more graphic based on the complaints and it wasn’t the main point of the book. The book is more about Peter Pan kidnapping children (which again is kind of a homage to the original). 
I think it had potential if we saw more of Peter and how he grew dark—or even got to see what Neverland has become! That would have been much more interesting than just chapter after chapter of Holly worrying and sad with very little action to fix the problem. 

Also, someone else said they were annoyed how Holly wanted to sleep with everyone she met, and honestly that was kind of annoying. Though I’m all for sexual freedom, I felt like this took away her agency. 

The author also tried to push a romance that didn’t work for me—there was very little burn in it, it was just 0-100. In a sense, my main complaint for everything is that. 0-100, details of worrying but no detail of the action and how they solved the problem. I’m not going to be keeping this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Stalking, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Child death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Death, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexism, and Suicide attempt