Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Imagine Me by Tahereh Mafi

24 reviews

skoloyian's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Torture, War, Death of parent, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Alcohol, Gun violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

aysha_blake's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Medical content, War, Kidnapping, Child death, Violence, Death of parent, Dementia, Confinement, Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Cursing, Gore, and Gun violence

overduck's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny tense

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

4.0

It felt a little lazy/haphazard to immediately throw the characters directly back into the situation they quite literally just escaped. I also felt the resolution could have resulted in a lot more answered questions. Still, Warner was iconic in this book, and I will shamelessly admit I read it obsessively.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping, Cursing, Violence, Sexual content, Child abuse, Murder, and Gun violence

Minor: Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, War, Torture, and Body horror

abicaro17's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.25

If you asked me if I liked this book 300 pages in I would have said no. Honestly this book sucked. Boring and gross and depressing. But Mafi manages to once again make a full recovery in the end. I even cried. I hate to say it but the end was so sweet the whole gross Anderson thing seems less offensive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Abandonment, Drug use, War, Alcohol, Body horror, Chronic illness, Cursing, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Slavery, Death of parent, Gun violence, Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, Torture, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Genocide, Misogyny, Self harm, Death, Drug abuse, and Forced institutionalization

melist6's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Medical content, War, Kidnapping, Blood, Violence, Gore, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

proudtobeabookaholic's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Juliette Ferrars or Ella Sommers - who is she, really? She was born as Ella, but transformed to Juliette, a soldier who obeys order. When the final battle approaches she may not even get to choose which side she wants to fight for. 

I think I agree with those who believe this should have stayed a trilogy. I do enjoy hanging with the characters, and since I had long gaps between books 3 and 4, as well as between books 4 and 5, I didn't mind the continuation. But now it wasn't that long ago since I read the fifth book, and I feel like there's quite a lot of repetitions. They win a fight, lose the next, win again... and so on. Not much variation and this book doesn't come with any real surprises either. 

I've borrowed the whole series from the library, but I didn't have time to read Imagine Me before I had to bring it back. Instead of waiting until it was available again I decided to listen to it. It wasn't a good choice. We get Juliette's/Ella's, Kenji's and, at the end, Warner's/Aaron's POV's, and the narrator that reads Kenji's chapters has a tendency to be overdramatic. Another thing is that my experience of the language gets different when I listen. Mafi's got a special way with words (at least in this series), and what gets striking in text can get tiresome when hearing it. Imagine the impression you get when you see a whole page written with "I am not insane", just repeating itself. Now imagine the same words narrated by a voice, over and over again, for about a minute. Not really the same thing, is it?

Well, I feel satisfied with having read the whole series now. I would like to read something else by Mafi to see if she always writes like this, or if it's only for these books. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Blood, Confinement, Medical trauma, and Violence

esterslibrary's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Torture, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Death, Drug abuse, and Eating disorder

bri__'s review

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I don't know how I felt about this book. I liked the flashbacks from Ella to Juliette and how that changed her behaviour. I don't understand why Emmaline wasn't talked about enough? After Oceania she wasn't spoken about again. I would've liked to see more interactions between Adam + James and Kenji + Nazeera. I also don't fully understand why Aaron was still rude to everyone even though he has good relationships with most of them and doesn't have any reason to dislike them. All of the interactions between Juliette and Anderson made me so uncomfortable, especially because she found him attractive. Overall, I sort of struggled to get through it around the mid way point. However, "come back to me, love" killed me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Violence, Alcohol, Child abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, War, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Physical abuse

vibinqvio's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

4.0

Imagine me was my least fav of the whole series. I was annoyed when reading the entire time, waiting for something satisfying to happen. And damn, that one scene with Aaron, I was in tears. Thank god it’s fast-paced and i finished it in like 2.5h reading time. A lot happened, and too much.

this whole juliette-affection-to-anderson thingy was pure disgust. i had to distance myself from my book seeing „You’re very handsome, sir“. No Juliette, no. Just no.

. Anyway, the last 100 pages were the best. The thing i don’t get is… Why is there no warner pov for the majority of the book? It would be great to see his thoughts while those events progressed. Kenji, my beloved, annoyed me in this book. I’m sorry to say and think that, but my dude kenji got on my nerves a lot for the certain things he said. i still love him. aaron broke my heart.  That epilogue was adorable and I’m currently reading believe me, which means, i will be leaving the shatter-me universe. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Gun violence, War, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Kidnapping, Drug use, Child abuse, and Blood

emma_batty's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

To the world she is formidable. 
To me?
She is the world. 💖

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, and War

Minor: Vomit