Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Without Merit by Colleen Hoover

4 reviews

saoirse10's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

MINOR SPOILER ->

Great book ,a good few plot twists which is always a plus but on many occasions religion has been discriminated against by the characters in this book.Near the end of the book it became quite cringey by the way characters would talk (flirt) with eachother.Apart from the above it was an easy book to get through and I would recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

Moderate: Medical content, Cancer, Alcohol, Animal death, Medical trauma, Drug use, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Panic attacks/disorders

evie_dora's review against another edition

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

i cannot put into words how messed up this whole book was.

we find out that Merit’s mum has an illness and lives in the basement of the house, while the rest of the family - including the mother’s carer who Merit’s father now has a child with - lives in the upper levels of the house. we later discover that merit’s mother actually suffers from a mental illness which makes her believe she suffers from a purely physical illness. the mother is repeatedly portrayed as villainous for her behaviour - and while i am not denying mentally ill parents can have a negative effect on their children, i do not like how the mother was treated because of her illness. merit almost loses her virginity to her step-uncle. she also kisses a guy who she believes to her twin sister’s boyfriend. when merit attempts su!c!de (for which there were NO content warnings that i could find) she writes letters to everyone living in the house outing all their secrets. this includes her brother’s - he sexually assaulted her when she was younger, and in turn, she outs him as gay to her entire family. all in all, this book was horrific.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Homophobia, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Mental illness, Sexual content, Outing, Sexual assault, Medical trauma, Infidelity, and Grief

Moderate: Incest and Animal death

Minor: Drug abuse

there was no content warning for the su!cide attempt, nor for any of the other possibly harmful content.

saraellenme's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

There are some interesting twists in this, but in general it was an overall bummer. The narrator is unlikable, and I know that’s the point, but listening to this book always soured my mood. It is also one of those books that ties up all the plot points neatly with a bow at the end. Very happily ever after.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Moderate: Incest, Homophobia, Animal death, and Medical trauma

Minor: War, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Toxic relationship

tml_emily's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Biphobia, Car accident, Cancer, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Medical content, Outing, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship