Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown

8 reviews

savreads28's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Cursing, Medical trauma, Blood, Death, Violence, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Bullying, Outing, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Murder, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Car accident, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

emily_mh's review

dark emotional slow-paced

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

2.0

This book has been undoubtedly marketed as a mystery/thriller (see the cover and synopsis), and the beginning of the story also frames the book as a mystery/thriller, but it completely fails to meet these genre expectations. The synopsis implies a self-led investigation into the death of Sydney’s father, but this investigation doesn’t begin until page 193. And I am being generous with the word “investigation” here; hardly anything happens along that plot line. Furthermore, even though I criticise adults who call YA mysteries predictable (we’re not the target audience!), I think teens will actually find this predictable as there is literally only one option as to who the texter could be. So instead of a mystery/thriller, this book is romance drama. One that doesn’t really adequately address the unhealthy obsessiveness of the romance in question on MC Sydney’s part. 

Instead of one star, I decided to give this book two due to the way in which grief is depicted. The discussion of this topic was done in a very raw way and had so much depth to it. It seemed so realistic. If this book had been a contemporary/realistic fic focussed on grief where the romance wasn’t so unhealthy, and if it were marketed as such, it would have been a winner. 

Rep: lesbian (word not used, lesbian only used once in a disparaging context) MC, white/Brown (ethnicity completely unclear) SC, East Asian SC, gay Black SC 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Stalking, and Bullying

Moderate: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Car accident, Cursing, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Blood, Ableism, Confinement, Vomit, Gun violence, Alcohol, Rape, Gaslighting, Medical content, Suicide, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, Animal death, Outing, Drug abuse, and Racism

Major: six uses of the lesbophobic d-slur Minor: self-injury, divorce, one use of the homophobic f-slur

pastelkerstin's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Car accident, Confinement, Cursing, Lesbophobia, Self harm, Vomit, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Outing, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Eating disorder, and Abandonment

Minor: Addiction, Sexual assault, Racism, and Sexual content

hatoooz's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• 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

4.75

stayed up for 6 hours reading this, i was kind of delusional by the end (and maybe halfway through) but it was one of my favourite reads of 2019 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing, Stalking, and Torture

manola's review

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Homophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Rape and Self harm

condensedmilk's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

pretty nice actually
I expected this book to be bad because I didn't like the writer's poetry so I was being unfair but I actually do like this book.
however I'm still not compelled to give this a 4 star because I feel like it wasn't there yet but I feel like Brown is doing pretty great already as a writer
it was nice reading this book because the teenagers are relatable to an extent or at least Sydney's emotions are. admittedly, don't really love the characters so Leo is probably the best one
but yea pretty nice

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Death, Death of parent, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Stalking, and Suicidal thoughts

finanr1's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Murder, Lesbophobia, Kidnapping, Homophobia, Hate crime, Grief, Gore, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Death, Cursing, Car accident, Bullying, and Blood

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Outing, Mental illness, Lesbophobia, Infidelity, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Biphobia, and Addiction

Minor: Rape, Racism, Outing, and Drug use

spacekidana's review

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Car accident, Cursing, Death of parent, Death, Homophobia, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicidal thoughts