Category: women’s fiction

Black Authors, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Sugar,Baby by Celine Saintclare

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“I think of Constance’s hushed voice whenever we were cleaning together. Once some things get dirty they can never be clean again and once some things are broken they can never be fixed.”

Agnes is a 21 year old black girl who lives at home with her religious immigrant mother, Constance, and her sister. Agnes is in limbo not knowing what to do with her life so in the meantime, she is cleaning houses with her mother. In between, she is sleeping with a guy who clearly isn’t interested in anything but her body and hanging out with her friend, Jess at clubs. One day, the daughter of one of their cleaning clients, Emily takes an interest in her and introduces her to the world of being a sugar baby. Agnes seems to have found the excitement she was looking for in her life. But as things begin to ramp up, she starts to wonder if it is worth it.

“I can admit it. It feels good to be wanted, to be delectable, delicious. But if I’ve learned anything it’s that I don’t want to be consumed. I have teeth of my own.”

I loved this book so much that I can’t believe it is not being spoken about in every corner of the literary world. This book took me into a world that is not my reality and made me understand Agnes’s decisions. Agnes is poor, doesn’t know what to do with her life and constantly having to endure her mom’s religious overzealousness. She is already sleeping with a no-good guy so what is the difference doing so with people who she is actually attracted to and getting paid for it especially when she wasn’t always sleeping with them?

What does it say about me that I enjoy this, sex with a man who doesn’t respect me whatsoever?

I enjoyed going through the journey with Agnes where she constantly straddled giving in to her lust and desires and hearing her mother’s voice. I also felt happy for her when she got to get all dolled up, visit places she had never been to and afford things for her sister. One of the best things about this book is SaintClare’s writing. It’s hard to believe it was a debut because it was so effortless.(SaintClare is 28). The story truly just flowed even though all the while I kept feeling “this can’t end well”. As Agnes’ journey grew more dangerous (to me) I kept hoping she would be okay as if I knew her personally. Her friendship with her friend, Jess was complicated and I couldn’t tell if SaintClare wanted us to view her as a good friend or a fairweather friend.

“It’s so deeply entrenched in me, the Fear of God, so much more strongly than the belief.”

It’s easy to reduce this book to just one about being a sugar baby but it had a lot more to it. It’s a journey of a young person trying to understand and find themselves, having a complicated relationship with their mother and friends and just trying to find a way out of poverty. There were other side stories which I found interesting as well and loads of graphic sex scenes. The author seems very knowledgeable and insightful about the world of being a sugarbaby which made this book even more interesting to read. If you couldn’t tell, I truly enjoyed this one and I definitely recommend it.

Taynement

Book Related Topics, Chick-Lit, Fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Funny Story by Emily Henry

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“The same universe that dispassionately takes things away can bring you things you weren’t imaginative enough to dream up.”

Daphne is engaged to Peter and a couple of weeks before their wedding, he comes back from his bachelor’s party and tells her that he is in love with his best friend, Petra. Peter and Petra jet off for a holiday and gives Daphne one week to leave the house Peter bought for their future life together, a house that she has put her all into decorating. Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian, she decides to become roommates with the only person who understands her predicament – Miles Nowak, Petra’s ex-boyfriend.

“You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t”

Emily Henry is a must read/buy author for me. I look forward to every book from her and she churns out very dependable rom coms. This used to be Jasmine Guillory for me but she hasn’t published a standalone book in a while, so I pivoted to Henry. I’ve reviewed every book of hers on this blog so just search her name and decide where you’d like to start. My favorite book of hers is Book Lovers but Funny Story comes pretty close. The characters are people you want to root for. Daphne and Miles were perfectly flawed in the way you’d want your romantic characters to be.

“I’m a cynic. And a cynic is a romantic who’s too scared to hope.”

Miles might be the best book boyfriend Henry has ever created. If he was secretly a millionaire then we would have been off to the races but alas, he doubles as both a server and a buyer for a Michigan winery. I don’t even know if this job is possible but I digress. Daphne is a librarian. I think I’m just a sucker for female characters created by Henry who work in the book industry in any capacity. Miles tries to convince Daphne to stay in Michigan even though the reason she moved to Michigan has ended, so he takes her on a series of “dates” over a couple of Sundays to show her how beautiful Michigan is. I was utterly convinced by Miles about the beauty of Michigan that I thought about going there for my birthday in September.

“It’s easy to be loved by the ones who’ve never seen you fuck up. The ones you’ve never had to apologize to, and who still think all your ‘quirks’ are charming.”

Emily Henry is a really good writer and if you like good books in general, then you should please give her a go. Now, if you love really good rom coms you should absolutely pick up her books. I read this book in a couple of hours after I picked it up at Barnes and Noble the weekend it came out. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this one? Did you enjoy it?

Leggy

Black Authors, Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

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“You accept a man shitting on you,” she used to say, “he’ll make himself at home. There’s no three strikes. You use me, take me for granted, you prove you don’t deserve to be in my life.”

Soledad has devoted her life to her family which consists of her husband, Edward and their three daughters. She is also a fantastic domestic goddess who excels in cooking, catering and planning. While going through a rough patch with her husband, things go from bad to worse when her life is upended by her husband’s choices and she has to rethink and restart her life from scratch. This includes trying to ignore the chemistry she has with a man her husband’s hates, Judah Cross. Judah is going through his own struggles trying to co-parent his autistic twins with his ex-wife, Tremaine. How long can these two ignore their feelings?

“Life is always gonna be complicated, but the good stuff is worth fighting for.”

First of all, this book goes against my usual reading style in that it is apparently part of the [Skyland] series (not a fan of series), which I didn’t know it was when I read the first book, Before I Let Go and some consider it a romance novel (not a fan of the genre). This is my second Kennedy Ryan book and I still don’t consider both books romance novels because the romance is not the center of the story. Much like the first book, I liked this one.

“A woman who wants more and realizes she deserves it is a dangerous thing”

The book centers around two characters that seem like very real people with real people problems. Soledad realizes that she wants more from her marriage and her life so far, and Judah has to learn how to let love in while being a caretaker to his twin boys on the spectrum, which in itself is a full time job. Which brings me to what Ryan does so well which is making her characters so real and relatable. Anyone familiar with dealing with loved ones on the spectrum will appreciate Ryan’s depiction of it (she has a son on the spectrum).

Ryan does such a good job of showing the time, care and expense involved with it. I also appreciated how even though they were twins, they had different manifestations of it. While Ryan never explicity mentioned it, I did like the insinuation that Judah himself is just realizing that he might also be on the spectrum.

“Can I be the love of my own life?”

I mentioned earlier how Ryan knows how to make characters real and one of my favorite parts is when Soledad, going through her confusion is going through her late mom’s things and finds a letter she wrote to herself and Soledad gets to see her mom as a woman and not a mom. Through that letter are pearls of wisdom that would be beneficial to anyone.

“When are we ever done working on ourselves? I believe wholeness is not a destination, but a lifetime process. Something that instead of waiting for, you could be living for.”

Once again, even with many threads, Ryan didn’t make it complicated. We get to still enjoy strong friendships, healthy co-parenting, teenage angst, romance and yep, she doesn’t skimp on the sex. I will say though, one of my gripes is that Judah Cross came off as too perfect. I am not sure I can recall any negatives of his and I don’t think that’s realistic. I definitely recommend this book and I am looking forward to the next one which will be Hendrix’s story.

Taynement

Chick-Lit, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

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Holly Shaw is a popular food blogger. Most of the women in America want to be her or be her friend, especially the women from her hometown in Nantucket. She is married to Matthew, a surgeon and they have a daughter, Caroline. Holly and Matthew’s marriage has been strained as her blogging popularity rose. One morning as Matthew heads out for a conference, he gets into an accident and dies.

Holly gets the idea to host a weekend with four of her best friends from different phases of her life. She also enlists her daughter, Caroline a film major to film the weekend in the hopes of fixing their fractured relationship. And so we meet Tatum, Dru-Ann, Brooke and Holly’s most recent friend who she met online, Gigi, each woman dealing with something major in their life.

I’m new to Elin Hilderbrand and this is only my second book of hers. Hilderbrand writes what could be called beachy/thriller reads all based in Nantucket. With this, she is 2 for 2 for me as I quite enjoyed this one. Listen, I don’t know how realistic to be able to get old and new friends alike at the drop of a hat but hey, let’s suspend imagination necause I do think it’s actually an interesting idea as you never know what you will get when you mix your friends together.

Hilderbrand wrote this book in great detail and you can tell she did her research. She knows her hometown well so not that but the detail in Holly’s dishes and just as a host was top notch. She did a good job making each character their own and they didn’t feel like they were fillers. Even in weaving their relationships, every interaction felt natural and not forced.

Even though the book starts with a death, I found this to be an easy and enjoyable read. In a weird way, it made me nostalgic and made me think back on my friendships over the years. Hilderbrand is supposed to be retiring this year and since this is just my second book of hers, I still have a lot of catching up to do. I definitely will be reaching for her titles in the future.

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

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“To surrender to the vulnerability of love and allow ourselves to be loved by others—isn’t that the most courageous act of all?”

Raised in a super conservative Palestinian family in New York, Yara thought she had escaped the fate of most of the women in her community by marrying a charming entrepreneur, Fadi who let her finish university and find work outside the home. Even though she is still a traditional wife who is in charge of her two daughters, takes care of the house and has dinner ready when her husband gets home, she still finds her life infinitely more rewarding than her mother’s life was. After she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counselling to keep her position.

As more things in her life come tumbling down, she finds herself increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warnings of a family curse and old superstitions. To save herself from her increasingly chaotic behaviors, Yara must face the reality of her childhood and the reality of her current life and marriage to prevent her daughters from the same fate in the future.

Yara continues to explore the nuances between culture, motherhood, marriage, benevolence sexism and female autonomy. If you have ever wondered what benevolence sexism means, look no further than Fadi. Fadi is a representation of men who think they are so magnanimous to allow women have a little bit of freedom as long as it doesn’t disrupt the labor that they believe they are owed from women.

Fadi thinks he has been a better husband and father than Yara’s father, which is objectively true, but the freedom he allows Yara is just enough freedom to think she’s escaped her mother’s life and broken the cycle and that gratefulness that he’s not as bad as the other men, keeps her on a tight leash. When Yara dares to try to test the limits of her leash, she discovers that Fadi is not the man she had built him up to be.

I loved Etaf Rum’s debut book – A Woman is No Man. It was my favorite book of 2019 and I couldn’t wait to read what Rum came out with next. I have to say that this book did not live up to her debut work. The name of the book and the description made it seem like we were going to go into superstitious territory. Rum kept telling us stories that never built up to be anything or mean anything. The future Yara’s grandmother saw for her daughter before she left for America, was never explored, the fact that Yara’s mother kept saying she was cursed, was never explored. Rum kept mentioning storylines and effectively dropping them. When the truth about Yara’s mother and their constant communication came to light, I did not think it did anything for the plot or moved me in anyway. I was like okay, another story where she’s not going to explore the reason why.

When Yara finally made a decision at the end about her marriage, everything just seemed to be wrapped up in a bow. No mention of any blow back from her family and her overall community. Honestly, nothing happens in this book. Etaf Rum is a fantastic writer and it kept me reading this book but ultimately, it didn’t do what I expected it to do when I rushed to get it immediately after publication. I’m going to definitely pick up her next book but this was a 3 star read for me.

Have you read Etaf Rum’s new book? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments.

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Talking at Night by Claire Daverley

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“I’d say you just love the idea of her, then, she says. You’re pinning everything on something you’ve never even had. Something that’s not real.”

Will and Rosie meet one day as teenagers at a bonfire. Will is very intrigued with Rosie and a tense “will they, won’t they?” relationship develops between them. As they get closer and get to know each other over secret walks, runs, phone calls and text messages, they seem destined to end up together, at least for a while. One day though, at Will’s birthday party, which Rosie and her twin brother sneaked out to attend, tragedy strikes, and their future together suddenly seems impossible.

“She thinks she loves Simon, and she knows he loves her, but sometimes she wants him to look at her like he could eat her; wants him to touch her in a way that means she feels wanted, instead of just cared for. But he sips wine and talks and smiles with all his teeth and passes carrots across the table.”

If you’re a fan of Sally Rooney, this is the perfect book for you. Honestly, this sometimes felt like Normal People fanfiction to me and I say fanfiction because it is not as good as Normal People. I’m sure Daverley knows she’s going to get this comparison a lot. Also, when did it become the cool girl thing to write dialogue without any punctuation? This is also something Rooney is very fond of doing.

Anyway, this book is sad girl literature. It is a Taylor Swift song in book form. Shy, smart girl who is under her parents’ thumb being pursued by the resident school bad boy who is also secretly smart, and secretly soft (but of course, only soft for our heroine) and talks about how cool it is not to want to go to university.

I really wanted to like this book because I’m a sucker for a love story that is built entirely on sexual tension but there was nothing here. I didn’t like any of the characters. I didn’t root for them to be together, I just kept waiting for it all to be over. Also, the author just decided to throw every trauma at them to make them more interesting but all the traumas in the world won’t make one dimensional characters feel any more real. Trigger warnings abound in this book – child abandonment, death, OCD, food issues, weight issues, coming out as gay, cancer, alcoholism and the list goes on.

This is a debut novel so I do believe that Claire Daverley has the potential to be a fantastic author but I hope she knows she doesn’t have to convince us that she can write and she needs to figure out how to tell a good story without drowning us in flowery language. Everyone knows I’m a sucker for a good quote from a book but I also need to connect to the characters in order to be able to connect to the beautiful language. This was my problem with Rooney’s last book too, give me characters that I can recognize. I don’t have to relate to characters in the books I read but you have to convince me that these characters exist somewhere in the world for me to connect with the story.

All in all, because this was a debut novel and I grade all debut novels on a curve, I ended up giving this 3 stars on Goodreads. I sincerely cannot wait to see what Daverley writes next.

Leggy

Book Related Topics, Fiction, literary fiction, thriller, women's fiction

Book Review: The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

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The Loverlys’ young son is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window and his mother Whitney waits by his bedside without a word to anyone. Back in their neighborhood, their neighbors and friends are shocked and reeling from their different roles in this. As the author takes us back to the weeks before the accident and the intricate ways the different families are connected, a domestic drama plays out right in front of us.

I loved Audrain’s debut novel – The Push. I gave it 5 stars. It was so well written and I was so intrigued. Her second book does not live up to her debut novel. I know the publishers are selling this as a domestic thriller but I refused to call it that in my blurb above, this is a domestic drama at best. There is no thriller. From the 20% mark you already know exactly what is happening and what secrets the author is stretching out to reveal at the 90% mark and it is not worth your reading 300 pages to get to.

Audrain is a fantastic writer. I’ll give her that. Every sentence is well crafted but my problem with this book is that this is not a story worth telling. This book is told from different points of views of the women living in the neighborhood. There are too many points of views and one in particular is so unnecessary and the editor should have cut it – Mara. Mara is an elderly portuguese woman who is the last of her kind in a neighborhood that has been utterly gentrified by the rich. She sits on her porch and observes her neighbors. I think she added nothing to the story. Her backstory did nothing to move the plot forward. You could skip all her chapters except one and you’d still not have missed a thing.

This book explores the quiet sacrifices of motherhood. We see Blair, a mother who has given up everything to be a stay at home mother to her one child. In contrast to Whitney who puts her career over the needs of her children. Then finally, Rebecca, a woman who has had 5 miscarriages and is desperate to become a mother. While Audrain has a lot of astute observations about motherhood, it ultimately amounts to nothing. There is no lesson to be learnt here. Nobody wins.

Audrain writes these long paragraphs about miscarriages that I had to skim through. The way she explicitly writes about the foetus leaving your body and describes each one of the 5 miscarriages in gruesome details made me feel like this is extremely unnecessary. But I also understand that maybe I’m not the target audience and people who have actually had miscarriages might relate to the very detailed passages about feeling the clumps drop down in the toilet as the contractions grip you?

As we get to know Rebecca, Whitney, Blair and Mara, the author explores the decisions every woman makes and the judgement and guilt that follows. She shows the lives we choose, the ones we’re thrust into and the different ways we punish ourselves for those decisions.

Ultimately, while I went around proclaiming the amazingness of The Push, I’m afraid I won’t be doing that for this one. Audrain is a fantastic writer but I wish she had sat with this one a little while longer. I gave this 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Happy Place by Emily Henry

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‘Love means constantly saying you’re sorry, and then doing better.’

Harriet and Wyn have been together and engaged forever. They are the couple their friend group looks up to as the perfect couple. Unfortunately, they’ve broken up without telling anyone – their families, their friends, nobody. Every year, their group of friends travel to Maine for one week in the summer to reconnect with the people who understand them the most. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth that they are still a couple just to make their last week ever at the Maine cottage perfect, since it’s been put up for sale. This is a rom com so obviously, shenanigans ensue.

I’m a big Emily Henry fan. I’ve read a lot of her books and have progressively loved them. I have to say that this one was a miss for me. I usually love the characters in Emily Henry books especially Book Lovers but the people in this book did nothing for me. I kept waiting to feel the deep love between these friends that has kept them together for so long, but I never did. Everybody was hiding something ridiculous from the group, things that did not matter at all. Who hides a breakup from their best friends for 6 months? Their friendship group just never clicked for me at all. If the entire premise of this book is that this group of supposed best friends never talk to each other about anything ever then what are we doing here? They are not best friends.

I especially enjoyed the romance between the two main characters. How they got together and then seeing the cracks in their relationship was something that was very well written and very thoughtful. I enjoyed the tension of two people who clearly still love each other. pretend to still be together. The snarky banter between them was delightful and something I’ve really liked in all of Emily Henry books. This book also delves into so many different topics like parental alienation, grief, depression, medication, death and the way friendships change as we get older.

My problem with this couple is in how the book ended. The ending is like a Hallmark Christmas movie where a top New York City lawyer moves to the tiny village to be with a man and sell corks. I loved Book Lovers because Henry didn’t sacrifice her character’s career just because she fell in love. The ending of this book was very rushed and very unrealistic. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but the ending is so silly that it made me annoyed especially since even though Harriet found her job hard, she enjoyed doing it. Yes, it wasn’t her passion but who needs passion when you’re 100s of thousands of dollars in debt already and you’re good at it! I will never understand this American obsession with finding your passion, that’s why you get to have hobbies because sometimes a job is a job!

I really like Emily Henry and will read her next offering but if you are new to her, please don’t start here. Read literally anything else of hers. We have two of her books reviewed here and here. My personal favorite is Book Lovers. I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin

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It’s 1998 and it’s Isabel Rosen’s last semester at Wilder College. Isabel is an only child who is still reeling from the loss of her mom her freshman year. Isabel feels like a misfit in college but does her best to fit in where she can. One night, a sexual encounter with a “friend” leaves her feeling even more shaken when her friend, Debra tells her that it was rape.

Trying to put the incident behind her, Isabel suddenly finds herself in a secret affair with her teacher, Professor Connelly. The affair seems to give Isabel more faith in herself that is until incidents unfold that let her know that it all might have been an illusion.

I have no recollection of adding this to my TBR but I tackled it as soon as it became available and it ended up being one of the books I have read the fastest, this year. I enjoyed this one because it was quite different and quite compelling. When I say different, I mean that it was a different style of writing. The plot wasn’t exactly linear and focused on one particular storyline. It was a lot of different pieces of material that ended up as a nice dress.

While Isabel was the main character and focal point, she also served as an axis to many other story lines that wove together. We learn more about her family life and what life was like for her growing up. We learn about her friend group in college and the behind the scenes drama of two of her professors who are also friends with Professor Connelly. It definitely sounds more complicated than it was because it was easy to follow and it made sense as you read the story. I particularly enjoyed the little snippets when Isabel would let us know what happened to someone later in the future.

What I did not enjoy with this book was how much I disliked Isabel. I don’t think this will apply to everyone and I totally understand she was going through a rough patch, but I really just wanted her to pick her head up and make better choices. I felt better when some characters in the bool alluded to the self doubt that was portrayed to us. Somewhere along the line, I think Florin was trying to draw a parallel between what happend to Isabel and the Clinton/Lewinski scandal but I don’t think it connected.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this one and recommend it. While I recommend, I can see how this can be divisive so if you read or have read this, let me know your thoughts!

Taynement

Fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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“You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the ones with a screw loose, if you ask me.”

William Waters is born during a time when his family experiences the loss of a child. This event sends his parents into a state of apathy for living and for their roles as parents to their son. William, who grows up neglected and barely acknowledged by his parents, escapes his household through a basketball scholarship. In college, he meets Julia Padavanos, an ambitious and self assured young lady who sweeps up Williams in her plans for their future.  With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, who is happiest with her nose in a book and who is waiting for her one true love who she thinks she will instantly recognize and vice versa. Cecelia, the family’s artist who suddenly ends up pregnant at 17 and Emeline, who believes she is the Beth in their sisterhood (the weak sister and the one who dies in the book Little Women). But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another.

“That Mark Twain quote about how the only reason for time is so everything doesn’t happen at once? I feel like everything that’s ever happened in my life is happening”

Napolitano treats her characters with such tenderness even in the face of so many bad decisions. The characters in this book felt real to me. I have 5 sisters and even though I would never make the decisions that these women make in the book, the complexities of their relationships are very well written and fleshed out. Their mother’s reaction to Cecelia’s pregnancy that mirrored so much of her own young years was so interesting to me. Even though the sisters’ dad was barely physically present in the pages, the way his influence on the girls shown through was so impressive to read. The title of the book comes from what their dad would say to them every time they entered a room – Hello Beautiful!

This book also explores male friendships – the relationship between Kent and William was so heartwarming to read. You could tell a woman wrote this friendship. The way they were there to carry each other and see each other through the world from the first time they met was very touching to read. It was great to see William step outside his family and meet people who were prepared to carry him through his worst days.

“William once had the thought that his fiancé (Julia) seemed to stride about the world with a conductor’s wand, while Sylvie brandished a book, and Cecelia, a paintbrush. Emeline, though, kept her hands free in order to be helpful or to pick up and soothe a neighborhood child”

When an unexpected tragedy occurs in the family and Sylvie makes a bold decision to choose her happiness over what people would say and over her sisters’ feelings, the bond between the sisters is shattered in a very irreparable way causing one of the sisters to be set afloat on her own in New York City, abandoning Chicago, the city she has grown up in and loved all these years.

While I would never make the choice Sylvie made, I saw it coming from miles away and I’m fascinated by how much Napolitano’s writing doesn’t make us question it as much as we would have in the hands of a more careless writer. It happens and you just think: that’s life. This book revolves around mental health, family expectations, ambition and our definition of what love is supposed to be or look like.

“She was all of herself with him and even felt there was room for her to become more. When he rested his eyes on her, it was without judgment or expectation, and in that space, Sylvie felt her potential: for bravery, brilliance, kindness, joy. All of these sails rested on the deck of her ship; they were hers, but she hadn’t seen them before.”

I’ve only read one other Napolitano book, Dear Edward, which I reviewed here and didn’t quite like. I actually think she has made a fan out of me with this new book. I picked up Hello Beautiful because it is an Oprah Book Club pick and even though I do not keep up with any of the celebrity book clubs, I was intrigued because a lot of the reviews surrounding this book mentioned it being a Little Women retelling which you do not need to read to enjoy this book. Having read Little Women though, I think it made the plot predictable for me because I kept waiting to see how she would pick up the big plot points from Little Women which had to be included otherwise it would not be a retelling.

It’s really hard to review a character driven book because all the major plot lines you can discuss feel like spoilers that would ruin the reading the experience for someone else.Anyway, I truly enjoyed this book. I picked it up from a book store in the morning and finished it in 24 hours. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads and strongly recommend it.

Leggy