Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Every Word You Never Said

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Every Word You Never Said by Jordon Greene

12 reviews

thesesusspace's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced

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

3.0

The most unrealistic part about this book is a ~16-year-old e-boy not knowing who MCR is.

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demetrius_bennett's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense 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

I loved the first half of this book. I loved the characters and the plot. However, I felt less interested by the second half or so. The characters are mostly lovable, but there are times when I felt frustration towards both protagonists. I suppose it was because they were truly just realistic — they are teenagers and should be flawed. However, the ending of the book was really what got me.

The moment that Ian brought up the idea of taking over the stage, I was afraid that the book would end that way. And it pretty much did. It was like it Disney wrote Love, Simon.

. Another striking flaw I found in the book was how the author writes teenagers. The amount of things they didn't know, when really they should've, was astounding. You cannot expect me to believe that a bunch of queer teenagers don't know MCR, or ET. And it might be because I was listening to this in audiobook format, but the amount of times I heard that someone "wasn't wrong" made me want to rip my ears off from the phrase. This being said, I enjoyed the idea of this book very much. Even with the parts that I hated, I eagerly sat through all 11 hours of it.

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asurasantosha's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted fast-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

4.5

This is such a cute and enjoyable story. It's not trying to be super complex and despite the enriching inclusion of some difficult themes (homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc) it has a pretty rose-y attitude. I recommend it if you're looking for so.ething meaningful but light-hearted and sweet.

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brimacca's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring 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

3.5

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lasavon's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

2.75

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raichou's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

4.5

I really liked this book and the characters.

Im so happy for Skylar that, after all this time of doubting and being able to trust in others, he finally got a family and friends that care for him the way he deserves.

He's dealing with so much internalised stuff, that he has a really hard time believing that people actually do like him.
Sure there were some parts in the book were Skylar and Jacob made stupid decisions because they're young and experiencing everything for the first time.
But after all I'm glad they were able to figure it out in the end.

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evelynyle_88's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I love the way Jordon wrote the whole story about this book. This is cute, sweet yet funny. And most of all, we have pansexual rep in this book which I love! Thank you. I read the beginning of this pretty designed book. I love all of the aspects.

This book is somehow heartwarming with a simple high school story thing. I love how the issues captured as the story goes.

Thank you for the beautiful story, Jordon Greene ^^

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stardustandrockets's review

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medium-paced

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

3.0

I had such high hopes for this book. I really did. Unfortunately it fell incredibly short. The whole time I was reading, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I didn’t like about it, but after reading lower rated reviews on StoryGraph, I figured it out thanks to people putting into words what I couldn’t.

The plot follows Skylar, a newly adopted nonverbal boy, who likes skirts and wears one to school. This sends the conservative Christians into a spiral because “boys in skirts are against God!” *eyeroll* This prompts a super sexist dress code proposal spearheaded by none other than Jacob’s toxically Christian father. All with the sub plot of romance between Skylar and Jacob. It's also a dual POV in 1st person which I didn’t love, but that’s not the book’s fault. I’m just not entirely a fan of 1st person.

Don’t get me wrong, this book was cute—in an extremely superficial way. The nonverbal rep is good, though you’re trying to tell me that people can lip read literally everything this boy says? When only about 30% of the English language is lip readable? Sounds fake, but okay. The only thing really diverse about this book is Imani, the Black pansexual witch. Though she’s written as the stereotypical Black sidekick which wasn’t great. I did like how Wicca was explained though. It was a nice contrast to the extreme of Christianity. The only other “diverse” characters were Jacob (a white, gay, rocker boy) and Skylar (a white, nonverbal, gay boy who likes wearing skirts). Otherwise there was zero diversity because cis-het white boys is the opposite of diverse. The characters were underdeveloped and all we got was surface level personality. Even the romance wasn’t developed well. It starts out as a love-at-first-sight slow-burn, which I absolutely love. However, everything gets thrown away after Skylar throws a tantrum and then guilt trips Jacob because he can’t read sign language well. So much of the development was off-screen and that was incredibly frustrating. And don’t even get me started on the amount of homophobia.

The toxic Christianity runs strong in this small North Carolina town and gods forbid you’re gay. The first time the f-slur was thrown around I almost rage quit the book. Then it was used again and again and again. Jacob even said something along the lines of “they can’t call me that slur, but I can use it on myself and that’s okay.” And like, I get reclaiming things that were once seen as slurs (i.e. queer), but I draw the line at the f-slur. Their classmates slinging it at them was bad enough. There was also one use of the r-slur by Skylar towards himself and that wasn’t okay either. I get that he’s extremely traumatized from years in bad foster/group homes, but never once did a character on-page ever call him that. So I felt it was extremely uncalled for.

Overall there was a lot more telling than showing and it made for a clunky reading experience. There was supposedly a conversation about sex between love interests that we only find out about because Skylar mentioned it, and there were a lot of random time skips (which is fine, but not when important stuff happens and we find out after the fact). Would I recommend this book? No. It had so much potential and it fell incredibly flat. For me, the only redeeming quality is the cover. Not even the conflict was satisfying because

they failed. Then the decision was overturned after the fact by the NC Supreme Court. So what was the point?

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shelby9's review against another edition

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emotional 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

4.75

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hollowpointe's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense 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? No

4.25

I loved it, there was a few spots that made me anxious (ie bullying and the religious stuff and the mention of "counseling") but overall it was rather cute and sweet. I totally cried over Skylar and Jacob a few times.

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