alltheradreads's Reviews (1.9k)

Tackled this backlist read from @kristinhannahauthor (a fave of mine!) for #aradreadingchallenge and it confirmed (once again) how brilliant she is at telling moving, meaningful, magical stories.

There are some poignant themes in this one (TW: suicide, an affair, infant death), some Virgin River vibes (which I read/watched recently so it’s on my mind), and I loved the way it all played out. I can’t wait to keep making my way through Hannah’s catalog until I’ve read them all! (and stoooooked she has a new book coming in February

This book is INCREDIBLE. It’s truly an epic— a nonfiction story of the great migration of Black Americans out of the South, told through the lives of three individuals, making a massive and historic era in our nation feel personal and intimate. I can’t rave about it enough.

I had to annotate this one as I read, because there was just too much I wanted to highlight and remember. Swipe to see the legend for how I color coded my flags— it’s the first time I’ve ever done this while reading but it helped me engage so much and find deeper meaning in these stories.

This book will open your eyes, break your heart, expand your mind, deepen your understanding, call you to grieve, and stir you to action.

It’s important. It’s impressively crafted. It’s imperative for us to understand what happened in our past before having any hope of working toward a better future.

Long story short— read this. Keep a highlighter handy.

I am still squealing (internally) about how much I loved this book! It’s so quaint and charming, has the best cast of characters, is centered on the kind of bookstore I dream about... it was lovely. It felt a little like Love Actually meets You’ve Got Mail, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’m back on my CoHo grind, tackling that backlist! This series (which I guess technically is three books in one but reads like one book in three parts) had me HOOKED. It’s like if John Green books met In a Holidaze (or any time loop plot) and a dash of Riverdale got thrown in the mix.

There's a quote in this book from James Baldwin that says "You think your pain and your heartbreak is unprecedented in the history of the world, and then you read." It gets to the heart of why this book is so important-- it's a collection of Black women writing on the stories, the characters, the book, the authors who showed them they weren't alone in their experiences, that their pain or their heartbreak or their circumstances weren't unprecedented. Every essay is beautiful and powerful, each one illuminating to me again and again the power of words to connect us, to convict us, to heal us, to help us.

My to-be-read list grew a LOT while reading of the books these women recommended, and I look forward to continuing my exploration of books by Black authors.

I'll say this until my dying day-- PLEASE read books by authors who don't look like you, who aren't from where you're from, who don't believe what you believe, who have lived different lives than you have. It's important. It's imperative. We need to grow in empathy and compassion, in kindness and respect, in appreciation for diversity and all of our complexity.

Grateful for the stories shared in this anthology, and will be keeping it on my shelf to refer back to often.

Nic Stone is SUH GOOD. I’ve loved everything she’s written. This one tackled some touchy things (poverty and wealth, classism, not having health insurance, biracial relationships, single parenthood, etc) while still reading like the young adult novel it is. It’s centered around two teens who come from very different worlds who end up teaming up to try to hunt down a winning lottery ticket that could change one of their lives. It has light moments, humor, a lot of realness, and an end I didn’t expect but really loved! Basically, if you come across a Stone book, READ IT.

The premise of this one totally intrigued me— a feminist spin on a western? Count me in! But even with the hype and a lot of great components, it didn’t quite click for me. There were Handmaid’s Tale vibes for sure, and a ragtag bunch of women (all outcasts, some barren, some queer, some mentally ill), but ultimately I felt like it skimmed the surface too much and loved too fast for any really good stuff to happen. I wanted to dive deeper into this quirky cast of characters, and hear more of their lives and adventures, but didn’t quite get that. I read it fast and couldn’t put it down, don’t get me wrong, but would have loved another 100 pages of depth (especially with Lark + Ada!!!).

These poems were... not great? Look, I love poetry, and I’m all about expressing yourself in verse... but these felt really shallow and cliche and overly simplistic/basic to me.

I don’t know how to write a review for this book when i am SQUEALING and my heart is EXPLODING and i am DYING for the sequel!!! it. was. amazing.

It took a minute for me to get into the world and follow all the unique names of people/places/things, but then it hooked me HARD and i could not put it down!

WHAT A BOOK. what a world! what a story! what a CAST OF CHARACTERS. i mean, the hero (anti-hero?) has a disability

I... don’t know what I just read ??? CoHo, girl, I love you, but this was... bizarre. Ghosts and paranormal activity and weird love triangles through dimensions and inhabiting people’s bodies and deranged exes... I was hooked, don’t get me wrong, but also, what the heck?!

I don’t really know what else say about this one