Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

The One by John Marrs

58 reviews

theklutzybibliophile's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.25

I love how unique each of the characters were. They all went through journeys that were unlike each others. Very good book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, and Pregnancy

Minor: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Abortion, and Death of parent

kara_v's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, and Pregnancy

atlas_shruggs's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

 Another decidedly OK book for this year. The plot was decent, I'll give it that, and some of the characters were pretty interesting. The Novum was cool, with the whole DNA Matching, but I just didn't feel particularly invested in any of the characters and their stories. In the beginning I found Christopher's chapters to be the most entertaining, but during the end I was looking forward to Nick's chapters more than anything. I kind of felt like this book was just five books all mashed together, since they didn't really overlap at all, and some of them felt way too different from the other ones. If you made me read one of Jade's chapters and then one of Christopher's and told me they were from the same book, I would think you were lying. I'm not sure if this is because I'm not used to reading adult thrillers, but I had to make an index of the characters and their main plot points so I wouldn't get too confused.
Over all I think I just didn't really mesh with the writing style, so it was pretty average for me.
Also like, all the trigger warnings for this book, jesus. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Stalking, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Infidelity, and Panic attacks/disorders

house_of_hannah's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I am actually quite surprised with how entertaining this read was in the end. The writing is simple and bland, especially for an adult novel, so I was nervous that it might end up being a DNF. However, I did find each scenario to be intriguing, and I wanted to know what happened to the characters. 

This book follows five characters/couples, which I do think is too many, as most situations stay pretty surface level. We go through each character a chapter at a time, and then that repeats until the end of the book. The characters stay in the same order throughout the entire story (Mandy, Christopher, Jade, Nick, Ellie), which I do appreciate, because it was very easy to forget who was who. The chapters are really short though, so it was a revolving door of plotlines. 

I thought the concept of the story was interesting, and as this is a thriller expect a helping of twists and turns. Most of the characters are just terrible people though, so it was honestly hard to find someone to root for. This is also more of a "tell" instead of "show" book, since the chapters are such bite size pieces, and the book itself isn't that long. 

My four star rating is just for the entertainment value I got out of this. I don't believe this is an author I would seek out. However, if you're looking for a quick and easy thriller with some romance for Valentine's Day, then this would be a safe bet. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, and Kidnapping

Minor: Homophobia, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, and Abortion

afterall's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

There are way too many psychopaths in this book.

I became increasingly frustrated with the decisions made by these characters. They either were extremely predictable or just didn’t make sense. I can’t think of a single character who I liked - they are all extremely unlikeable and I found myself rolling my eyes many times.

I was also disappointed in the writing. I felt I was often taken out of the story because the writing style is so simple and blunt. Maybe I’m just used to more poetic writing with better flow. The dialogue was also unrealistic and often clearly only there to explain to the reader, but made no sense coming from the characters.

There were so many twists and turns (some predictable, some just absolutely ridiculous) that it kept me reading, but I couldn’t wait to be done reading this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Gore, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

satin's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Toxic relationship, and Murder

ducklingh's review against another edition

dark reflective 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

3.5

I'm not usually into thrillers, but it did keep my attention well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Torture, Grief, and Pregnancy

Minor: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gore, Abortion, and Abandonment

One of the main POVs is a psychopathic serial killer who preys on young, single women that live alone and kills them via strangulation. An unrelated main character (not a POV) has terminal cancer

which he does end up succumbing to in the book

laurmich's review against another edition

dark emotional fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Kidnapping, Abortion, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Stalking, and Pregnancy

nisha_nee's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

My first John Marrs AAAAAAAAH
I've been hyped with this author for a very long now so it feels good to finally read one of his books. I liked that this book has very short chapters thus very quick to get through and always leaves us in a cliffhanger or a shocking reveal. It feels like an accomplishment finishing chapters by the dozen, given my current attention span. I guess I just got way too hyped with this that it did not exceed my expectations. It was fine, I liked one character's story than the others. And it's a me-thing since I tend to favor one character over the other, hence why I may have not enjoyed the book altogether. But if you are looking for a fast-paced thriller with a unique plot, try this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Infidelity, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Minor: Miscarriage

novi's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

The brief synopsis of this book always mentioned "what if the love of your life is a serial killer" but the book is more than that. It basically explored this idea "what if we can find the love of our life by finding the DNA that matches or compatible with our DNA?". It showed us various scenarios that can happen, via these set of characters. We're following 5 different stories (cmiiw) that revolves around that and the serial killer one is just one of the scenarios. All of the stories are equally interesting and thrilling for me.

At first I was like "this is more like a romance than thriller?" but actually it's a mix of them and as the story goes by, oh they were definitely thrillers. Some stories might not feel as thriller-y, but they're still very interesting to follow, and some are A LOT. Especially that we're reading about these cases at the same time, when usually in other thriller books we only follow one case. Here we definitely follow more than one.

This exploration of human behaviour is really interesting and it's an experience that I enjoyed. It also made me think a lot about relationships and ethics. Although it doesn't reach that 5-star factor for me (maybe because it was lagging a little bit in the middle), I still really like it and I really recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Blood

there are two times in the book that has a few paragraphs of gory details, involving someone's entire face (and face parts) and neck. but othee than that, i personally think it's not very graphic.