Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

36 reviews

kelseyr713's review against another edition

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

Quick read but ultimately not for me. The quality of writing just isn’t there and many of the characters are unnecessary to the plot, sometimes even disappearing for chapters at a time. Characters are also shallow, and the number of red herrings/loose threads is annoying (why is the serial killer even mentioned??)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Murder, and Sexual content

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Violence, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Addiction, Infertility, Mental illness, Bullying, Infidelity, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

riflelizards's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Drug abuse, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Murder, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

Moderate: Cursing, Infertility, Death, Classism, and War

Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts

kaylamoran's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

So here's the thing.  It was very entertaining, and I sped through it quickly.  But, (and I hesitate to say this for fear I'll sound like an ass), I thought it was very predictable.  For reasons I won't share here because of spoilers, I thought the murderer was pretty obvious fairly early on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Death, Murder, Alcohol, and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Pregnancy, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Cursing, Addiction, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Outing, Suicide attempt, Eating disorder, Bullying, and Homophobia

kimberlyswalters's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I really enjoy her writing and the characters she created in this book, but the ending was a bit dull and happened too quickly. It didn't feel satisfying. Including the perspective of the murderer in the epilogue would've been nice instead of getting that information through another character's perspective, but it wouldn't have changed my mind on the ending feeling rushed. I think Heather & Doug were my favorite characters overall, but none of them were written poorly. Overall, I enjoyed everything except the last few pages of the climax. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Mental illness, Animal death, Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Drug abuse, Infertility, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Stalking, Vomit, Addiction, and Gun violence

Minor: Body shaming, Classism, Fatphobia, and War

orndal's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, War, Violence, Vomit, Stalking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, and Murder

Moderate: Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, Ableism, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Gun violence, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Sexism, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Infidelity, and Infertility

Minor: Child abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Body shaming, Animal death, Blood, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

katieav's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I found this to be a very enjoyable read. While I wasn’t surprised by most of the revelations in the book, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I was disappointed in the

drug revelation as I thought that was kind of anti climatic and that we didn’t know who “the boss” was-I half expected it to be someone they all knew!

but I don’t think it made the book not worth a read. While I appreciate that the flaws were important to the book-the constant focus on the women’s physical descriptions did make me roll my eyes. This was also a very descriptive and gory book I think could make it very difficult for some people to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Death, Murder, Animal death, and Gore

Moderate: Body shaming, War, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Toxic friendship, and Eating disorder

throwback682's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense

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

3.75

I’d never read a book like this. Not only is the identity of the murderer a secret for a long time, so is the identity of the victim. It definitely kept me guessing until the very end.

I thought the twist/murderer/motive was kind of corny and definitely ableist (mentally ill villain trope). But the rest of the book was so well crafted that it didn’t really ruin it for me somehow.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Ableism, Animal death, Gun violence, Violence, Bullying, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Stalking, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual content and Child death

writtenontheflyleaves's review

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

 The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley 🦌 [copied from insta]
🌟🌟🌟✨

🦌 The plot: A group of friends who met at Oxford University many years ago goes to a remote Scottish loch to celebrate New Year. On the surface, it's all fun and games, but in less than 24 hours, one of them will be dead, and as the authorities struggle to get there through the snow, one thing becomes certain: the murderer is still among them.

I don't read a lot of thrillers, but this was lent to me by a friend and proved to be an accidentally festive read as I read it over New Year!

The story is narrated from multiple perspectives across five characters: three of the friends who visit the loch, and two of the people who work there. (Interestingly, they're all told in first-person apart from the one male narrator - there's probably an essay on female subjectivity in there somewhere)

You don't find out who the murderer or their victim are until right at the end, and while in another book this might have annoyed me, here I thought it worked to keep me suspicious of everybody, especially in conjunction with Foley's characterisation.

While some books I've read make rich characters into caricatures, usually with some version of "I'm better than you, peasant" popping up in the dialogue to show that Yes, They're Bad, I thought this one did a good job of showing the different shades of ugliness and entitlement that are possible in characters like these. This heightened the drama because really, any of these people might have been capable of hurting each other - not because they were supervillains, but because they were spoilt or vain or desperate or all three.

I didn't see the murderer's identity coming until the last moment and they turned out to be such an interesting villain, too - I was really impressed! My only gripe is that after a really carefully-paced and -written main arc, the story wrapped up in a rush. It didn't seem that the emotional fallout from the murder was actually that big - [REDACTED]'s murder actually seemed quite convenient for a lot of the group - and I'd have liked there to be more reflection on what was actually lost in the course of the novel.
 
 🦌 Read it if you're not usually that into thrillers (me neither - but I liked this!) And want something atmospheric with a critique of privilege and some really strong group dynamics between characters! 

🚫 Avoid it if you prefer darker or more elaborate crime stories as this isn't that twisty. Also, it goes without saying, check TWs before reading 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship and Murder

Moderate: War, Drug use, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Violence, and Sexual content

Minor: Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

hilarylouise's review

mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol

Moderate: Murder, Death, Bullying, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Injury/Injury detail

blewballoon'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

3.0

There's a lot of stuff here that normally makes it hard for me to get through a book. Check the content warnings. Many of the characters are unlikable and make terrible decisions. Despite all that, I actually enjoyed reading this. I found myself mostly focused on figuring out who had been killed and who had killed them, so I was reading the chapters hunting for clues, not necessarily for immersion in the story, and that helped keep me from being too affected by the heavier stuff mentioned in the content warnings. The alternating perspectives helped keep me from getting too frustrated with the more unpleasant characters. I figured out the victim and killer a bit sooner than they were revealed, so that was satisfying as well. Good atmosphere and tension building, thematically appropriate for cold weather. I was worried I'd regret picking this up when it was on sale at my local bookstore, but no regrets at all actually.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol

Moderate: Classism, Sexual content, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Animal death, and Stalking

Minor: Outing and Pregnancy