Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

787 reviews

waitwhathelp's review

emotional funny hopeful reflective 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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship and Emotional abuse

mimo_'s review

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

i sacrificed myself to read this book because no one else in my group was going to. and it truly was a sacrifice. this book fucking sucked! this is no hate to the author but I genuinely did not enjoy this book nor do i care in the slightest for the characters. nathan is absolutely not "man written by a woman" as stassie put it even if he does wear gray sweatpants. it felt as though there was no actual plot here aside from how often can the main characters sleep with each other (57 times to be exact) within ~400 pages. it was as though that was their main trait, and skating/hockey were secondary to their personalities, if you can call them that. how is this a "college romance" when school is mentioned all of three times in the book i am unclear.  ask anyone what i read and it's majority romance but when i tell you that this book is not it. i saw no reason to have getting laid brought up that many times it's never that serious

and dont even get me started on the gru scene

. to each their own i know this book is popular but I'm unsure what for. maybe it's because i had my tumblr and wattpad eras in the past (yet they've never been this smut focused?) but this feels like a book for people that didn't experience tumblr in 2012. some of the time jumps made no sense to me either and the fact that fmc is so dense. there wasn't much of a redeeming factor in this book but i did like when

aaron

got punched in the face because it was deserved. anybody under the age of 16 reading this that thinks its peak literature can argue with the wall. both mains felt kinda stupid to me and maybe if they had attended as much school as often as they fucked they'd have some more common sense, but i suppose we can't have it all.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

wondahwoman's review against another edition

funny medium-paced

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

3.25

While I thoroughly enjoyed the romance between Anastasia and Nate, the main source of conflict throughout the story felt a bit forced to me.

Spoilers for the antagonist/conflict below:

Stassi’s skating partner, Aaron, is nothing short of emotionally abusive, and it seemed unrealistic to me that Stassi would forgive/excuse SO MANY of his actions. Even towards the end when she had become disillusioned by all of his manipulative behavior, she continued excusing awful things. I wish there’d been more development into why she was so deep under his spell after having only been his partner for two years.

I appreciate that the drama between the two love interests was very minimal (see also: no third act breakup!) but the conflict that was there made it hard to finish near the end. It was worth it for the romance, but I wish the antagonist had been more thought out. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship and Sexual content

Moderate: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: Death of parent and Pregnancy

jreshsingh26's review

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Body shaming

Minor: Vomit, Fatphobia, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Pregnancy, Infidelity, Body shaming, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Eating disorder

jeanettesreadingcorner's review

emotional lighthearted slow-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

3.5

What I liked: 

• Once I read past 200 or so pages, it’s like the author found the plot and the story actually began. I started to enjoy the characters the romance, and everything else more. Nate and Anastasia are really cute. I enjoyed how they supported each other and their character growth, together and as individuals. The hockey team guys are funny and sweet too. I loved their found family dynamics.

- Nate punching Aaron was really satisfying. 

• I’m curious to read Wildfire to see how it compares to this one and I liked the characters enough to continue reading in the Maple Hills book world. 
• The ending was astronomically better than the beginning of the book. Overall, I eventually liked Icebreaker and I could see why it’s popular. There are some aspects that bothered me about it though…

What I disliked: 
- Aaron The Asshole sucks and I hate him, especially the way he treated Anastasia. 

• the beginning is a mess. There’s no direction or storyline. The characters are just partying and having sex, talking about sex, or insinuating it. I don’t mind sex scenes and they don’t bother me. However, they don’t need to be so frequent and in every moment the main characters are together. It was just too much in one book. That’s something that I don’t like about adult romance books. 
• British phrases in a book set in the USA and the characters are American? So weird. I guess it could be the quirky thing that the author writes but it seemed so odd and out of place to me. 
• The book is written in dual pov, which I usually prefer and love, but it did feel repetitive at times in this one. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Bullying, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Fatphobia, Body shaming, Infidelity, Medical content, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, and Grief

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, and Cancer

jaemeappel's review

lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Body shaming, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Death of parent

agome314's review

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted slow-paced

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

3.5

I liked the idea of the story and the story got better later on. It was kind of hard to like the characters in the beginning and the plot was a little slow. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Emotional abuse

alexmall029's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, and Toxic friendship

lindsaymc74's review

lighthearted slow-paced

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

2.0

I didn’t really see where the plot was going. Like it to me was just a figure skater and a hockey player having sex the whole book except for the last few chapters. But even then I thought it was dense and hard to have interest in

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Medical content, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, and Body shaming

Minor: Cancer and Death of parent

kdb1121's review

funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Toxic friendship