Reviews

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel

pullilou's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

5.0

maria_perito's review against another edition

4.0

4,5

maison's review

Too dark, sad and abstract. Very slow and too many odd stories had my attention waning.

alykat_reads's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

2.0

I'm definitely an outlier by skimming the reviews here, but I didn't really care for this book. This book is filled with triggering topics, it wasn't the topics themselves that made me cringe - it was that 85% of the book was just trauma porn. I think the fact that these women went through some horrific stuff could have been conveyed without all that. It was very repetitive, and after a point it was stale. I get the point was tragedy after tragedy, but it didn't leave much for the rest of the plot once you removed all the tragedies; nothing else really happened.

You never find out who the murderer is; the 'twist' with her sister is beyond belief and leaves too many holes in the already weak plot

. 

The cover also really bothers me, because it should be one with the top lip in lipstick and the other with the bottom lip in lipstick, not each split down the middle. How can you get it so tragically wrong when it was an important piece to this story. 

mlashley's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad

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

4.0

toffeebox's review

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

Didn't have the same sort of magic as Betty did. 

While this book did a fantastic job of the negative themes: drug use, rape, prostitution, violence, family neglect, addiction, it was stiflingly sad all the way through. Positive sides are developed very limitedly - unlike betty, where you had the father, and a few good brothers to give a form of "breathing space" - the sisterhood was superficial at best, despite having a big motif of the Chillicothe sisters.

Nevertheless, the writings and lyricism were fantastic and the plot twist

The bit where the murderer was shifted from a human to addiction.

  really brought it together. 

marshall263's review

challenging dark sad medium-paced

5.0

mcfessie's review against another edition

4.75

A bit of a gut punch book, really well written and felt like an authentic take on some really hard topics. As someone who hates spiders some of the pages were a challenge to navigate 😅

itsredandread's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Drug use, Drug abuse, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Murder and Child death

antiintellectual's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

It feels wrong to rate this anything less than 5 stars. It's devastating and real. I mourn for my sisters.