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I will never ever get tired of these books. I look forward to each and every one of them and I hope she keeps writing them forever and ever. This one is a sequel to Antoinette’s story and I loved it so very much.
If I could give this book ten stars, I totally would. My daughter and I read these in one sitting and laughed so much that we were crying. I then read them all again. I follow this account on instagram, too, and I cannot recommend it enough. I normally don’t enjoy humor that puts others down but this is written in such a way that it is clear it’s humor and not personal. I just love it and will read it again and again any time i need a good, honest laugh. with gratitude to netgalley and Chronicle Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
I took a break between the two volumes because this material is tough to read and a lot to digest but I knew I wanted to read it anyway and I am glad I did. I am glad that they are on a journey to self-healing and I am glad they are documenting this horrible journey. Stories like this need to be told and I am grateful for folks who are brave enough to tell them.
3.5 stars rounded up I took forever to read this book and I am not sure why. It’s exactly the kind of story that I like. It’s a quiet story that’s mostly a character study of folks living in a small town. Once I started reading it, I loved it and wanted to keep reading it. If you enjoy action action action, this will not be the book for you. It’s quiet. It’s slow paced. It’s intricate, slow and also about things that haunt you from your past/memories. I enjoyed it and look forward to more from this author. With gratitude to edelweiss and Europa Editions for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
This book has the most intriguing premise: woman receives text from her dead ex that he needs to talk to her and she should meet him under this one tree. When I read that, I knew I would be interested in reading the story and understanding how the author navigated this plot. And it didn’t disappoint. The story is twisty and turny and I really couldn’t stop reading it once I started. I really enjoyed that it wasn’t trying to be too clever and that it didn’t have a conniving unreliable narrator. It was just a great mystery! with gratitude to netgalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
I read this book about two weeks ago and I will be honest that I have forgotten most of it. I picked it up because Espach has a new book coming out this year which I loved so I wanted to go back and read her earlier work. Even though I don’t remember much of this novel, I remember thinking that I really liked it and thought it covered similar topics to the new one and with similar wisdom but it wasn’t as good. I will go back and read more of her work. I’ve liked each of her books that I’ve read so far and this was no exception.
This is the story of the author bravely telling the story of sexual harassment they have had to endure while they were a manga artist working for a famous artist. The story is told unflinchingly and it’s not possible to read it without feeling the tense and horrific experiences they have had to endure and the ways in which these experiences can last a lifetime and impact so much more than the moments in which they happened.
I am not picky about which genres I read but the amount of YA I’ve been reading has declined quite a lot in the last few years. I think it’s mostly that when you read a lot of them, they start blending into each other, and you are not engrossed or surprised easily after a while. But when I saw this book in emily’s review I wanted to read it. I am a fan of the groundhog day trope, and one of my favorite YA books of all time also had a similar plot so I wanted to see if I would like this one as much. And I did. This is a thoughtful story as the main character is trying to figure out why his day keeps repeating. He is dealing with the grief of his own mother’s death and as the day keeps repeating he opens up to see more, understand better, and drop into his own feelings more as well. There are many trigger warnings in this story so please proceed with caution but, for me, it was a thoughtful read.
This was a fast paced thriller, but I think my mind was distracted so I never properly got into it and didn’t care enough to really get engrossed in it.
I am a big fan of Julia Alvarez and have loved several of her novels. I love her narrative style and I love her beautiful characters and this book is no exception. This is the story of Alma who is a famous author who decides to move back to her home country and create a cemetery of untold stories to honor and bury all the stories that won’t leave her alone but that she’s not managed to write. The novel intermingles Alma’s story with Filomena’s (a worker she hires to tend to her cemetery) and several of the characters also tell their stories. Each story is unique and interesting and you can’t help but get attached. IT wasn’t my favorite of Alvarez’s novels but I still loved all the moments I spent with it. with gratitude to netgalley and Algonquin Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review 
Here are a few other books I loved
Here are all 202 books I’ve read this year. You can see my goodreads reviews here.
“It had been almost two months and he still waited for her to walk in the back door every morning. That morning he had leaned over Ali’s bed, and when his daughter opened her eyes and he saw the look in them, he knew she did, too. They were all floating in some in-between where nothing seemed real and nothing seemed right. Waiting for the rest of life, whatever that was, a future that felt like a betrayal. He kept her phone charged.” I started this novel months and months ago because I love Anna Quindlen and I knew it would be phenomenal. But it’s about what happens to a family when the mom dies. And it was so heartbreaking that I had to put it down. For months. I picked it up and put it down many, many, many times because this year was hard enough on its own and I didn’t need to sit in more grief. I didn’t want to sit in more grief. ““Yep,” he said. Her “complicated” and his “yep” were first cousins, were two answers designed to keep the jack in the box, because who knew what might pop out, everyone has a whole universe of trouble inside and no one wants the world to know.” Finally a few days ago I was ready to tackle it and I am so glad I did. I will say that I still think it’s very, very, very sad. The grief pours out of each page. It’s heavy and hard to read. Especially because it’s not “in your face” grief. It’s not wailing. It’s the quiet, subtle grief that’s so much more heart wrenching. It’s the little moments that will never be the same. It’s the ordinary losses that feel so acute. “You know, one thing I like about Miss Cruz,” Ali said. “She never says that. It’s like she knows that time can pass, and things can get better, or things can get worse, or maybe they’ll just stay the same. People act like time will fix things so everything will be the same again, everything will be all right, but sometimes it’s the opposite. Ant can get harder and meaner until that’s the person he is, for all time.” There’s so much sadness and grief in this story. But there’s also moments of joy and hope. As with life, mostly we tend to move on, mostly we’re resilient and we recover. People help us. Kindness helps us. And we pick up our pieces and we find a way to survive and if we’re lucky we also find a way back to joy. What a beautiful story this was. As with all her stories, this will stay with me for a long time. with gratitude to netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review |
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