Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa

6 reviews

macjack's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Loved it. Kept me guessing to the very last page. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Sexual assault, and Alcohol

thedrolldiaries's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Ooo this was a good one! A dark, sinister, Sri Lankan-inspired twist on

Jane Eyre

!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Alcohol, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Stalking, Violence, Addiction, and Abandonment

hkburke2's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

This helped keep me listening to a book even during a stressful week, so I'd say it was engaging. Some of it felt predictable but the writing and characters kept me interested to see how the (predictable) twist would unfold. 

I'm just not a fan of the "I'm drunk/on meds so I can't even trust myself!" device. I wish that hadn't been a part of this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Child death, Death of parent, Addiction, Violence, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Murder, and Mental illness

Moderate: Racism and Xenophobia

katiebowers's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Listen, this book is all over the place and there is *a lot* of “telling” rather than showing, but I still somehow ended up glued to it by the end. I love an unreliable narrator, and ohhhh boy, Paloma, the story’s main character/lonely alcoholic/maybe murderer?, is one of the worst. Although I figured out the twist about halfway through the book, I was still surprised by parts of the final delivery of it. The book takes place in the U.S. and Sri Lanka, constantly jumping back and forth in both timeline and geography, covering ghosts, depression, betrayal and more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Murder, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, and Blood

Moderate: Grief

serendipitysbooks's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

 My Sweet Girl is a psychological thriller. Paloma Evans grew up in a Sri Lankan orphanage but was adopted by an American couple when she was twelve. At the time she thought she was the luckiest girl in the world, and that her life proper was really about to begin. But at age thirty things are clearly not going so well for Paloma, and she is haunted by a secret from her past.

Plot wise there’s a lot going on including a dual timeline (I found the orphanage storyline the more compelling), an unreliable narrator, a disappearing dead body, a possible stalker, nosy and suspicious neighbours, not to mention a ghost.

Overall the book was fine. Detracting from my enjoyment was that I suspected the major twist very early on. Additionally I often found Paloma and her behaviour very irritating and couldn’t always bring myself to care about what happened to her. The pluses for me were the explorations of race, immigration and transracial adoption.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Sexual assault, and Vomit

Moderate: Mental illness and Murder

amandalorianxo's review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

OMG!! How creepy and twisted !! This was such a engaging scary read for the month of October ! Granted there are some trigger warnings such as assault and abuse that need to be looked up in case you are triggered by this. I loved the fresh take on the unreliable narrator ! Riley Sagar was right that this was original as far as storytelling goes. I didn’t see the ending at all. It was a little bit long and slow for my taste but it fits the narration style & helping put the pieces together without giving away too much all at once. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual assault and Vomit