Love and Other Carnivorous Plants by Florence Gonsalves
3 out of 5 stars.

“She makes me feel like I’m not myself and more myself at the same time. She devours me in the best way and kills me in the worst way, but I’m happy to be killed by her because she’s heaven too.”

Goodreads Description: Freshman year at Harvard was the most anticlimactic year of Danny’s life. She’s failing pre-med and drifting apart from her best friend. One by one, Danny is losing all the underpinnings of her identity. When she finds herself attracted to an older, edgy girl who she met in rehab for an eating disorder, she finally feels like she might be finding a new sense of self. But when tragedy strikes, her self-destructive tendencies come back to haunt her as she struggles to discover who that self really is.

I was sent an ARC of Love and Other Carnivorous Plants from The Novl. (Check out their monthly newsletters for chances to win books from them!) It is expected to release May 15th of this year.

I have mixed feelings about this book and writing this review is so difficult. It’s not that I didn’t like the book, because I did like it. I would even recommend reading it, because it talks about a lot of important things; such as eating disorders, mental illness, alcohol abuse, questioning your sexuality, and a few other things as well. It’s jam packed with important things.

As far as the characters go, I liked the characters. They were all going through something different. They were all struggling with something in their lives. Danny was really sarcastic a lot of the time and she tried to use humor to cope with some of the things happening in her life. I really liked her relationship with Bugg (the girl she meets in rehab). Bugg was a really cool character. Danny’s best friend, Sarah, I wasn’t the biggest fan of hers. But again, she was also going through a lot as well. I can see how it could change her.

This tragic event that happens, I honestly wasn’t expecting it at all. I think that’s also where the book took a turn for me and where my mixed feelings about the story came into play. The pace of the book started to slow down. I was waiting for things to happen and they just weren’t happening or at a decent pace anymore. It was taking awhile to get there. I was also hoping for a little bit more with the ending and for certain things to go differently. Like the tragedy that happened, I personally felt like that didn’t need to happen. It’s hard to really talk about it without giving spoilers though.

Overall, I liked Love and Other Carnivorous Plants. I thought it was a good story. It dealt with a lot of pretty important and tough things. For the most part they were handled pretty well. I liked Florence’s writing style and it was easy to read. I wish the pace didn’t change in the second half of the book, but it was still a good read. I would still recommend reading it.

In case you missed it;
Book Haul|| March.
Travel|| Butterfly World.

I hope you have a great day!