A review by a_ab
Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Well, I didn't read it in full, actually. I read the first 4 chapters and the last 5 (out of 24 total). And I do not feel like I lost much in skipping the other 15, because at the time I resumed the book, things were going mostly how I imagined they would be going based on the beginning. 

I don't think I could have suffered through the abuse of the main character's internal "magic" voice for all those 15 chapters. It was revolting and infuriating to me, but it would be extremely triggering for anyone who ever had to live through even a fraction of that kind of emotional abuse. 

In that vein, I found the ending rather questionable in the proposed "happiness" of it. And there's no way I am going to revisit the chapters I skipped, - as far as I am concerned, nothing is worth putting up with the abusive BS, however internalized it is: get therapy or whatever it takes to weed it out until nothing but a detached clinical memory of it remains, and even that memory is there only so that it could be quickly recognized and weedkilled on sight if it ever sprouts again.
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