Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Layla by Colleen Hoover

38 reviews

larainsidebooks's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.0

By the end of this book, I was just laughing and shaking my head at this absurd plot. I see that Colleen Hoover tried to do something here and mixing a different genre into her usual romance, but it felt like she suddenly had an idea for a plot twist that seemed cool, but it lacked everything that it needed to make it a good plot twist. It was just messy, underdeveloped and hard to follow.

And here's also the fact that this plot twist somehow excused all of the bad things the MC did to his love interest, even though he didn't know the plot twist was going to happen. He even acknowledged that what he was doing was bad and another person agreed with him, but he still did it?! I find that really hard to wrap my head around.

I read a book with a similar aspect couple of years ago (2019) and while the ending was also kind of absurd, I feel like that plot twist had more weight and shocked me more than this one. That made me guess what was going to happen in this one too, but here it was just bad. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, and Gun violence

Moderate: Gaslighting and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Blood and Violence

emilys_editions's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

Layla was an interesting book. My first CoHo read and it was a bit of a romance/thriller... Maybe? It was easy to read but slow and while I think the concept was good, the execution wasn't that great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Addiction, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Stalking, and Violence

Minor: Blood

marybsimp's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Violence

jessy_03's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, and Violence

toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

I'm gonna need at least 200 more of these thriller/supernatural books from Colleen Hoover, because this knocked me on my ass almost as much as Verity. I didn't even know what this book was half the time, but I knew that it was really hard to detach myself from my kindle because I just wanted to know what happened and what it was all leading up to. It didn't disappoint me, I'm happy to report. However, I wanted to push the main character, Leeds, off of the nearest cliff. Have I ever hated a male protagonist more? I don't think so. I feel like that was almost the goal of the narrative, though. If it was, congrats Ms. Hoover, you win at writing insufferable men 😂 i don't even know what to do with myself after this one. I already cried, now what?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Gun violence, Violence, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Confinement, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, and Body horror

Moderate: Drug use, Stalking, and Self harm

aflseniors09's review against another edition

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I went into this book blindly aka I didn't read the summary of what it was about. I did this because I'd heard so many good things about the author. I can now say even if I had read the summary, this book wouldn't have went where I thought it would. 
To my understanding this isn't the type of book Colleen usually writes, but was an attempt at something new. Something new it definitely was, but it also left a bad first impression on me.
This book centers around a lot of abuse, murder, and triggering topics, so it definitely needs a heavy TW. 
I'm all for reading books with heavy topics, but I just don't think this one was really necessary.
Essentially the entire book is trying to justify Leeds' actions and convince you he's ~not a bad guy~, but even with the twist that aims at justifying his actions, he's still really shitty and it doesn't make any of it okay. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Murder, Torture, Violence, Mental illness, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content

ella_1203's review against another edition

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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, and Violence

bookswithvicky's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A

3.5

I am still processing what I read. Defo is not my favourite CoHo read and I can assure that paranormal romance is not my cup of tea.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Violence