prettymuchhanna's review

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dark reflective sad slow-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? Yes

3.0

It's not mentioned in the summary of this book, but this novel is entirely centered around the eating disorders both the narrator and her best friend suffer. This is not a spoiler because it's revealed pretty much immediately. It is pretty explicit in its depiction of purging and calorie counting. Since the entire novel is about this, it does strike me as odd it's not mentioned anywhere in the summary. Especially since I think the content could be pretty triggering without any warning for some people. 

There things I liked about this book-- the title, for one, is amazing. Stovall's prose was great. Khaki and Fiona's friendship is very interesting to read about, and I was really drawn in by figuring out why they became estranged, and if they would ever reconcile. I think this book could be more powerful if you had more of a connection/knowledge of the music it centers around, so that's partially my bad. Some scenes were very touching to me. 

They became estranged because of Fiona's relapse and then recovery of her eating disorder, and Khaki's subsequent development of an eating disorder. This makes sense but I felt like it sort of built up and then there was no real huge reason, because from the beginning we know they were in a toxic codependent friendship. It sort of just felt lackluster to me. Khaki had almost no character development. I don't mind a slow lit fic novel, but this one just didn't really hit for me.

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tenderbench's review

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

3.5


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ramreadsagain's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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

3.75

I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both follows Khaki "Olive" Oliver as she looks back at her toxic, codependent teenage friendship with Fiona, and her time at university and within the punk scene.

Really mixed feelings about this one, because wow it could have gone badly if I wasn't in the right headspace. The blurb gives absolutely no indication of this, but 95% of the book is about eating disorders. I recommend extreme caution to anyone with a past or present history of food struggles, because this book is intense

I overall enjoyed my reading experience, the characters are wonderfully unlikeable and self-destructive, and it's a good coming of age book. I think it will be especially enjoyable for anyone who is/was into the 2010's Punk scene, and it's great to see it from a non-white perspective because punk is one of those subcultures that can outwardly appear to be very white. 

I really liked the writing style, it has a bit of a meandering stream of consciousness vibe, and sometimes reads like when you try to name-drop obscure bands so people think you're cool. There are some real stand-out sections. Some people have said they didn't like the ending, but for me I think it worked really well and felt realistic to how such a reunion would go. 

This doesn't reach a 4 star purely because I'm actually concerned by how the blurb, surely intentionally, withholds the entire, very serious, subject matter of the book. Reading it again now, it lowkey feels like it's describing an entirely different novel. And judging by some reviews it's clearly to the book's detriment. Thankfully I'm in a place where I've managed to get through it (mostly, I think) unscathed. 

So yeah, mixed feelings about this one. A compelling piece of work when taken in its own little bubble, but suffers somewhat from mismarketing.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an advance copy of this book. The above is my honest review.  

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alyssann's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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? Yes

3.75

Phew, where do I even start?  This book was a lot--and I can definitely say it's not going to be for everyone but I am one of those someones that ate it up. I'm in my 30's now but if this book dropped when I was in my late teens to early twenties it would have been my whole personality. Tumblr would have eaten this book up in the early 2010's.

This book was steeped with nostalgia being a former punk/emo kid that also grew up in New Jersey. I mean there are little lyrical Easter eggs to The Gaslight Anthem (and many more bands!), plus a full playlist in this so how could I not like it?

Like others have stated this is at its core a very heavy, and sad coming of age story which centers around a toxic, unhealthy friendship and how it affected our protagonist over the span of ten years. I do wish the book was more forward with using trigger warnings--there are (many) graphic depictions of eating disorders along with S.A. and discussions of self harm which are not mentioned in the book description or displayed as trigger warnings which I think is unfortunate. I see a lot of complaints about the characters being unlikeable but weren't we all insufferable to a degree as teenagers?  The prose is beautiful and there are plenty of memorable quotes but the pacing and overall plotting did fall short for me at some times. Still, I would absolutely read more from this author in the future and thought it was a great debut. 

"I told her I'd love her forever if Iever loved at all, loved her more than I'd ever loved anyone before, more than I'd love anyone to come. And she had no idea I was just smushing together a couple of songs." if you know, you know.

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ac_rva's review

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dark sad medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.0


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anich716's review

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

2.0


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anneessdee's review

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

3.25


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poodily's review

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

4.0


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bookishbrenbren's review

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dark emotional sad tense medium-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

Brittle and hard, like ice. Soft and bruised. Loud and intense but extremely internal even claustrophobic. Destructive in a real misery loves company way. 

The synopsis is a fking lie ok we need to start there, the original sin. This is not a story about toxic friendship or whatever tf it said, this is a story about girls wanting to disappear so achingly badly. They choose their hiding methods: anorexia and bulimia ofc, to minimize their surface area and control the chances of being perceived; each other, to know someone else so deeply that they have an escape from the misery of their own minds, to have someone to blame, someone else to pour into so they don't have to think about how empty they are; music (or movies) that they can fixate on in a way that allows them to become nothing more than a vessel, a body that only hears, only shoves, only perceives but is never individualized, is the masses. Either way, you never have to be yourself. Your only friend , who knows you so completely, still can't escape her own head long enough to think about you or consider you and maybe that's what drew you to her. 

I'm so torn, this was really beautiful writing but she used it to write the most godawful internal monologue ever written. A gutting exploration of mental illness - particularly depression, anxiety, OCD, and heavy heavy heavy eating disorder content. Like 80% of the book is just about one or both character's anorexia. And like no content warnings at all? Not even a mention of ED in the synopsis? When it was like literally 75% of the book? The synopsis fking lied to me. And it's 2024 put some fking content warnings in this book. 

Anyways. Like I said I'm torn. it was an honest exploration but god it was dark. I understand that whatever healing we're supposed to think went on was just barely enough  for them to hang on to life and that's real, and ED is a chronic illness and it's not magically cured at 30 and people still struggling with it do choose to do things like adopt a child... from Africa? But it just felt like fking raking myself across the coals towards the end there being inside a brain starving itself for 10 years.  And like I love a character study, I do, but what is the point of this story? To spend 300 pages in the passenger seat of a car being repeatedly driven nearly off a cliff? To glorify or humanize or honor or honestly  profit off of anorexia...  what is this book doing? What is it saying? No fr someone tell me.  

If you feel like DNFing at 30%, 40%, DO IT. SAVE YOURSELF while you still can. Nothing changes. Or it gets worse. I didn't highlight a word past page 69. I guess I'm not torn if my thoughts are that the last 250 pages aren't worth reading. 

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thespinystacks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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