Book Ratings

Hoo boy, what a garbage book this turned out to be. And it had a really great beginning! I did like the MC almost immediately when she begins to describe her three dogs in the first chapter. I also liked how blunt she was, I liked when she unabashedly told the reader how hot her husband is - women talking about still being sexually attracted to their husbands is pretty rare for me to read outside of fanfiction. Buuuut the constant reminders of how hot he is got annoying really fast when it came up in every single fucking scene he was in.

I skipped the villain's sections after the second or third chapter of them. omfg, did the reader REALLY need to know about ALL of the killer's mutations, it's a 'chick lit horror' novel not fucking fear and hunger

Actually, there was no horror in the novel, just sections of the MC whining, then a villain POV section, then back to whining, then back to the boring as fuck villain being an incel... it was tiring to read.

Trigger warning for sexual abuse of a minor, which is what the plot of the book revolves around. It would've been nice to have more than one adult in the MC's life to NOT treat the poor girl like garbage. But the book was alright before the ending - it was so abrupt and left a lot of loose ends.

I skipped the long intro that went nowhere but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this compilation of flash fiction! And, honestly, some of the stories were more sastifying than some of the books listed here. It's important to take the title of the story into consideration too!

I THINK I read the anthology version but I'm not 100% sure, haha.

Very odd read, I can't think of any other word to describe it

The author manages to create a believable narrative of a woman living with dementia, and in the first person pov as well. The main draw of the novel, in my opinion, is how the author constructs the story. However, a major flaw is the actual script/font. Any dialogue and all the narrative sections not spoken by the main character are in italics and the main character's speech is in regular font. That leads to some conversations being really confusing because you can't tell if the MC is speaking or thinking to herself because her thoughts are not in italic script. I hope that made sense because it's incredibly irratating.

The MC before her dementia comes off as very snobby and bitchy - actually her friends in the flashbacks are all holier-than-thou - YES WE KNOW THAT YOU'RE ALL VERY INTELLIGENT UGH. It's a story without a likeable cast, sadly.

One of the novels where the young protagonist is way too mature for her age. I didn't really care about any of the characters and thought that the narrative was way too kind to the awful father. I also couldn't figure out WHAT DECADE this took place in until I looked it up - 1960's.

HOLY SHIT WHAT AN ABRUPT ENDING, I read the digital version and I thought my copy was messed up but no. There's actually a sequel named 'Joy School' but this book was very meh so I might pass on it. If the book had more likeable characters besides the main protag it would've been a lot better.

omfg another book without quotation marks, I would drop it if it hasn't been on my to read list since like college

A lot of negative reviews find the book "whiny" but uhhh I didn't really get that at all? It's a MEMOIR about her experiences with mental illness, she's allowed to be self-indulgent and complain about her life. It was sooooo SLOW though, and I just couldn't get through it all. There's really no plot or events taking placed during her memoir, just A LOT of prose that could've been condensed or removed entirely.

No quotation marks! :I I liked this book a lot so I reread it, but I totally forgot about that detail.

I like this quote: ""My grief fills rooms. It takes up space and it sucks out the air. It leaves no room for anyone else." (I need to make notes of favorite lines from books I read so that I can post them on this page.)

I think I would've liked this more if the chapters were in chronological order. But it's a good, sad read and it hits hard if you've ever lost a parent.

This novel was a pleasant surprise! I thought the plot was a little odd - do celebrities really pull stunts like the one in the book? (idfk) - but the romance was pretty cute and the two main characters were well written.

... fuck the MC's little sister, though, glad she got smacked in the first scene she appeared in. Who the fuck blames all their problems on their sister who was kidnapped and abused for two years?! She even made the male MC's publishist (that had someone stake out the same kidnapping victim's house) look good.

Props to the author for making the male mc (and clear romantic interest) admire the good qualities in the main character that are not her looks for the first few chapters the two are together in.

I like how the main character isn't afraid to call people out on their bullshit. The author manages to write her comebacks without a "holier than thou" attitude.

Overall I thought it was a sweet story with a nice romance. Hell, I've would have given it four and a half stars but the ending was a bit rushed even with an epilogue. There's also no closure on some of the important side characters.

god damn it i always spell 'brain' as 'brian'

A rough read but very well written. If long descriptions of medical procedures makes you squeamish you might want to skip it, she goes into details very thoroughly about needles and stuff.

... What the FUCK is wrong with her (former???) coworkers though?!!??? You see a colleague having an extreme mental breakdown (switching between crying and joy rapidly, paranoia, speaking nonsense) so you decide to take her out to a bar for a few drinks????? That's also where her friend that showed the narrator a picture of her own shit worked. (I'm not kidding. She had to poop in order to leave her doctor's appointment so she decided to take a shot of it with her phone... to show it to everyone.) Susannah Cahalan worked at the Post newspaper as a journalist, fyi, and that was a good idea for multiple people she worked with instead of calling someone or 911.

Of course, that's not the only part of the book that enraged me. She was misdiagnosed multiple times by multiple doctors. (Before she was FINALLY sent to an actual hospital.) This is to be expected since she's a woman in the United States. Also the first psychologist she sees insists on taking a Polaroid picture of her before their first session. I WOULD'VE GONE OFF ON HER OMFG like how dare you demand your patients to sit and smile for a picture because you like to "keep track of everyone" before you even know why they're here????

I read a few reviews online stating that since she can't really remember certain events that the book would've been better in third person pov instead of first person but I disagree. She had access to a lot of her medical documents and reliable accounts from people she trusts to fill in the gaps of her story. She's also a talented enough writer to blend it in seamlessly into her story. Also, Mrs. Cahalan lets the reader know all of this early on in the book and reminds the reader throught that her account of an event might not be 100% accurate. I liked her honesty and transparency she shown while telling her story.

Would have been five stars but the book me forever to finish and I have to admit that I skipped a lot of the medical jargon sections.

Waaayy too many narratives. No exaggeration, there were about 10 or more characters that had their own chapters from their POV. I didn't care for any of the characters either so...

Too much whining, not enough action to make the plot bearable to me. It's beyond me why the main character even bothered to go back to her childhood home where her sister lived - the sister was a complete bitch to everyone. The story could've been SO MUCH SHORTER.

The intrigue and drama was not interesting in the least, the dialogue would hint at yet another secret but not tell exactly what secret the character of the chapter is referring to... By the time a secret was revealed you don't remember the character even bringing it up in the first place. I hope that makes sense. An example: halfway through the book there's a character thinking about her husband's "mistake" ad nauseum but never gets into what exactly he did until later in the novel. But while the wife is thinking about the "mistake" it's late enough in the novel to figure out what he did and so her inner thoughts are just filler by then.

Nothing at all like Girl on the Train, which I liked much more than this book. Not enough to re-read it again but it was way more interesting.

The main character is great and you really feel awful for her being shoved into a cult against her will. And she was mature but not too mature for her age - I think sometimes in YA novels the author's tend to make their teenage main characters wiser and more put together than most adults.

Wow, what a gigantic piece of shit the mother was. (This becomes apparent in the first chapter.) The novel does a good job explaining what happened to make her the way she was. But then again, it doesn't really explain why she did what she did to the main character in the first chapter.

I liked the simple writing style. It's a YA novel so it's also easy to follow along. The ending was very, very abrupt but there are two sequels that follow "Esther"'s sisters. I might read them in the future.

The book is often listed as "psychological horror" online but it's not at all. At least, to me it wasn't. It's about a cult, but it's a very... bland, realistic look at a religious cult. I don't mean "bland" as a bad thing, hence why I followed it up with "realistic". There's just no dramatic scenes of things like "satanic panic".

Read previously and liked it, but this time around I didn't like it as much. I think that's the first time ever that I disliked a piece of media more instead of less the second time around.

YET ANOTHER BOOK WITHOUT THE AUTHOR USING QUOTATION MARKS UGHJHHHDDI

The stories have a weird cadence to them almost. It's hard to explain. I know that the word "cadence" is used to describe vocalization but it was the first word that popped up in my head when trying to describe the tone of these short stories. I would not recommend it.

The thoughts below also apply to the prequel, I Couldn't Keep it to Myself, which I have read but want to reread.

Probably my favorite collection of short stories ever. I love how raw and real every story is, how every woman has a unique voice and tone to their tale. All of the stories are nonfiction.

Sadly, almost all of the stories are about the women's lives before they were incarcerated and their pasts are all very tragic. If details about domestic abuse and sexual assault unnerve you a lot, and it should of course (but these stories go into very vivid detail about the women's experiences with those crimes), you may want to pass on this one.

Another "okay" read. I liked the main character a lot, she's tough as nails especially for a sixteen year old girl. But her character wasn't enough to make this more than a "meh" book. There were WAY TOO MANY minor characters and they all acted and spoke the same. By the time the abrupt as fuck ending came about, I couldn't keep track of who's who outside of the main character's immediate family.

I cannot figure out what decade this book takes place in for the life of me. Maybe the 1990s or early 2000s?

The prose about the wilderness of the Ozarks is beautiful but sometimes there's TOO much of it.

I didn't know that this was made into a movie before I read it and I have to say, I would not have pictured the main character to look like Jennifer Lawrence. But judging by the reviews I'm looking at online it doesn't seem to be a bad movie? It's a 7.1/10 on IMDB and 94% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's an okay read. I didn't like how the chapters were all over the place chronologically, it was extremely confusing. There's also too many characters taking over the narrative and I didn't care for any of them except the main character.

I also rushed through the last couple of chapters, probably because I was tired of reading about other minor characters' lives. The most interesting part of the novel were the scenes that took place in the women's prison... but sadly it seemed like half of the novel was spent on scenes outside of the main character's prison stay.

lmao i totally brought this on myself

because i read this in high school and fucking hated it but decided to reread it for god knows what reason, i guess i was bored af, idfk

The entire book is so fucking boring and dull, it's definately one of the worst books I've ever read.

From my notes: Okay she writes like I write lmao, too many italics and the story is stuffed with meaningless drivel, no wonder I hate this book because I also hate the way I write

... well, it's a good example of what NOT to write like, I suppose. It's not BAD writing, it's grammatically correct and everything, but there's so much stupid filler that goes NOWHERE. This time I didn't make it past the fourth chapter. I couldn't take the story any more after a three or more pages scene with the father and a coworker going over paperwork that goes nowhere and has NOTHING to do with the plot.

This sounds very harsh, but the entire cast of characters are just irratating and stupid rich people and I couldn't care less about their problems. Oh, and I think there's no POCs in the story but I could be wrong. I just remember thinking that "everyone is white" when I was forced to read this garbage during high school.

God I hate it when there's a whole bunch of italic text and it's just a gigantic run on sentence like no sir not for me nuh uh stfu

The only positive is that the movie is apparently really good? I mean, it won the Oscar for Best Picture after all.

Really good read, I was so engrossed by it that I forgot to take notes like I usually do while reading it. I thought it was much better than Sharp Objects and was just as good as Gone Girl.

This is one of those books that I can't really talk to much about without spoilering, but I will say that it nailed how awful the true crime community can be. That convention scene was the creepiest one in the book for me.

Ugh, more changing POV chapters.

I liked the "main victim" more than the detective main character by a huge amount. For one, the detective believed that the "main victim" was lying about being assaulted BEFORE THE DETECTIVE EVEN SPOKE TO HER. It was either that or right after they spoke, I don't remember which.

But the detective, who is a female, really thought for a few pages that the victim was lying about almost being raped. Why? Because the victim killed the fucker in an odd way - setting him on fire with chemicals. Then the neighbors found the woman screaming in the garage, naked with her hands tied in front of her. BUT NO SHE'S CLEARLY LYING BECAUSE SHE KNOWS ABOUT CHEMICALS /s

So after that I didn't give a shit about the female detective and I won't be reading any more of the books in her series. Yeah, this book is part of a eight or so part series about the female detective, whose name I don't even care to look up. You don't need to read the rest of the series to understand this novel.

Besides that irratating main character, I did enjoy this novel. The "main victim" was very interesting. Hey, remember how I said I was going to hold off on reading books where the main female character gets abused by men in my The Woman That Walked Into Doors review? Yeah.

After finishing this book, the rating went from 3 and a half stars to 3 stars because I disliked the main protagonist detective so much.

It was pretty easy to figure out what happened to the family but the rest of the surprises of the book were pretty well done. No spoilers here.

I did like the main character. I'm kinda confused on how the family managed to live in a five story mansion though? Neither her or her husband had a lucrative job IIRC. And I feel awful for the daughter, why the FUCK did the parents tell them about their divorce during the family vacation?! (That's not a spoiler, the vacation flashback is at the beginning of the book.)

okay I found out about the alleged plagiarism AFTER I finished it - here's a good article on the theory but there's spoilers for both books. I gotta say, that's a LOT of evidence for this book being a rip off of the other one...

It's alright. I liked the main character but getting used to the constant Irish slang and dialect was annoying.

I need to take a break from reading books about women who are abused and mistreated by the men in their lives.

Note: I wrote down the points below BEFORE I realized that the book might be a dark comedy. Then again, I didn't really care for this book regardless of its (possible?) comedic tone. Once the actual revenge plots go underway, the book gets a lot better and it's actually funny at times. But it took way too long to get to the decent parts and the points I made below still stand.

I thought that the digital copy I read was glitched or something but NO the husband's name really is BOBBO. Not Bob. Bobbo. I kept reading it as "Blorbo". I seriously took a full star off the rating as soon as I realized that my copy was fine. ... Bobbo.

okay I fucking hate it when author's change pov from first person to third person on a whim between chapters

It seems like every new page of exposition has another jab at the main character's appearance, which got old REALLY FUCKING FAST. Hey, did you know that the main character is tall and wide and overweight and ugly and also VERY ugly????? No??? WELL DON'T WORRY THE NARRATIVE WILL REMIND YOU EVERY SINGLE PAGE!! And of course the husband is just mentioned to be "handsome" and "charming" only once. ...... Actually. There's a lot of reminders to the reader about facts they already know. Did you know that her husband's mistress is so dainty and petite looking??? Here's another reminder of that fact further down the page if you forgot!!! A lot of telling and not enough showing.

I know that the author is a (famous?) feminist which is great! But. I think she went into overdrive when it came to making Ruth's husband unlikeable. I mean, the husband literally calls her "not a natural rape victim" to her face while his mistress is in the car with them. He whines and yells about no woman in his life being able to cook properly. It's like he's a over-the-top cartoon villain that displays every misogynistic trope instead of the main antagonist. There is literally nothing redeemable about his character and I just thought it was a another example of the lazy writing shown throught this novel. Fucking BOBBO.

Kinda reminded me, tone and plot wise, of My Secret Life of Bees. It's a good book - the writing is solid and the characters are well-rounded and likeable - and was a welcome palette cleanser after suffering through The Woman Upstairs.

The main character seemed much older than fifteen, I keep thinking that she was around eighteen!

Would've been four stars if not for the bullshit ending for the dog. :(

The writing was so fucking long winded that I skipped PAGES AND PAGES AND PAGES of prose and exposition. I've NEVER done that before. This book is honestly up there with The Time Travelers Wife for the worst book that I've ever read.

The main character's creepy obsession about her friend's (who was so fucking annoying) child REALLY unsettled me but not in a "horror" way... more like a "I don't think the author realizes how creepy the main character's pining about this child comes across".

lol the only likable character was the child who said that Wonderland was dumb, when I read that I thought YES KING GO OFF

the writing is so fucking boring that it took me a full chapter after it happened to realize that the annoying mc slept with her boring friend's stupid husband...... or whatever. The chapter ends with them hugging but then?? They talk on the phone like they slept together that night????

would've gave much more of a shit at the twist at the ending if I like the main character in the slightest or if the plot of book was better and had the twist somewhere near the middle - i'm just going to spoil it because it's so fucking dumb - the main character masturbates inside of her friend's stupid art exhibit, friend was secretly recording her and uses it for the same art exhibit years later, main character finds out and instead of going to the fucking police or suing the bitch she vows to live life angrier

by the way, WHY did the awful friend feel a fucking need to add a picture of a MOSTLY NUDE PREPUBESCENT GIRL to her awful art piece?????

hey whoever edited the digital version of this novel, have you ever heard of something called PARAGRAPH BREAKS???

I'm going to stop ranting here, I just hated this fucking book so much and I'm mad I wasted time reading it.

WOW, this is seriously the best book that I've read in a LONG TIME. Seriously, I wish I had read this sooner just because it's THAT damn good!

This is probably one of my favorite uses of first-person perspective that I've ever read, Charlie's inner monologues just flowed so seamlessly with the narrative. Charlie herself was a very likeable main character despite her flaws. I'm glad that she punched her mother before the events of this story happened because she 100% deserved it.

The ending was very satisfying, which was so nice to read because I've been reading nothing but books with lackluster endings lately. I do wish that we had a chance to meet Ellis.

Was Tanner, Felix and that one friendly nurse the only decent males in the entire book? I think so, Mikey might be considered one but I didn't like him one bit. Riley was scum and deserves more prison time, I guess his sister never told anyone that he had a relationship with a minor? Barf.

I would highly recommend this book to most people if you can handle the topics of self-harm, suicide, sexual abuse and other triggering acts discussed in detail. One of the reviews in the front of the book mention that it's similar to Girl, Interrupted (another favorite of mine) but it doesn't mention that Charlie's only in the hospital for the first third of the book. I can see this book being more like the movie version of Girl, Interrupted, I suppose.

The ending was SO, SO rushed! The main villain literally has one sentence describing his current situation once Marion leaves the house. And it seems like the main character's transformation happens within one, maybe two, chapters. After being meek and scared the entire book, she suddenly loses some weight, gets some confidence and snags a boyfriend. That's pretty much the main reason for the 3/5 stars rating.

It was nice to have a "spinster character" actually be an "ugly" outcast instead of a "shy woman with odd behavior that also happens to be average looking and skinny". Although I'm seeing less of the latter cliche in literature as I grow older, which is cool.

The main "twist" was also predictable and you can tell what it is in... I think the second chapter.

This book REALLY started out strong. I've always loved reading books about Alaska and the idea of a novel about a young woman toughing it out in the Alaskan wilderness sounded like a great read. Sadly, the charm fell off for me around the middle of the book. The main character was alright, I guess, but I didn't understand her fixation about buying that boat. Naturally, the ending had the boat sink anyway - VERRRYYY SLOWLY. I dunno how fast old boats sink but it took too long for me.

It's been a while since I read this, but the deal with the man living in a shack by the ocean really confused me too. And the woman that pretty much sexually assaulted the main character out of fucking nowhere was dropped halfway through the story too. There were a lot of minor characters with backgrounds that never got explained in detail, now that I think about it. But the only characters that I gave a shit about were the main character and that one former coworker that helped her out way too much. Oh, and the big dog! He was my favorite character, actually.

Probably my favorite book of all time. It's a odd pick for a favorite, I suppose, since the main character... well, it seems that readers either like her or HATE her. I liked Dolores but I can completely understand why she would be disliked. She does a lot of shady shit.

I first read this book back in high school and it really was the first book that I've ever read with such a flawed female protagonist. A lot of people give Wally Lamb a lot of credit for writing "such a well-developed female main character", and I agree with that statement, but?? It's weird that I never hear praise about women authors making well-developed male main characters. And when you can write anything you want, like monsters and whatnot, is it really that big of a deal that a male author can write a interesting female MC? I hope that made sense.

Slight spoiler but while I don't agree with Dolores taking care of the fish, I do think that the (female) character that owned them took advantage of Dolores in a way. She did refuse her advances several times before the sex scene after all. I guess that's a odd opinion to have as I've never read any reviews that mention that but it's always stuck out to me.

And I'm sorry but I will always picture Dante as Dante from the Devil May Cry video game series. Stylish!

This book will always be a favorite of mine. HOWEVER, if you're looking for a book that's close to the movie's story then you won't find it here. Some scenes from the movie are taken from this book but that's about it. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie too! But it's just different from the novel. Since this is an autobiographical account of living in a mental health ward in the 1970's the other characters aren't as fleshed out as they are in the movie. Lisa's character in the book is, for example, nowhere near as over-the-top as her character in the movie.

(I would actually recommend Girl in Pieces if you want a story closer to the Girl, Interrupted movie over this book!)

(Also, one of my favorite youtube channels, antiheroines, did a fantastic video about the book and movie - Girl Interrupted: Flirting with Madness. I highly recommend watching it, especially if you've seen the movie but haven't read the book yet.)

Speaking of Lisa, I liked her more in the book than the movie. She was crafty and much funnier.

I wonder how the other young women in this story are doing today.