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Dejas family is struggling to make ends meet. Her mom is doing all she can to keep her family fed and sheltered and her father struggles with mental health issues Deja doesn’t understand. She moves to a new school and makes two new friends Ben and Sabeen, as she’s tries to connect, fit in and find herself.
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This book was really well written. It was interesting to read about 9/11 from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know about it, who hadn’t lived through it. The discovery and coming to terms with how humanity can be cruel to one another through the eyes of a child was incredibly sad. I remember this feeling. While the book focused a lot on some pretty heavy topics it also shows the importance of diversity, Hope, friendship, community and family.
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Some core topics include: Racism, Islamaphobia, Mental health issues, Homelessness, Talk go loss/death, PTSD

Emoni Santiago is a single teenage mother who is trying to balance life as a mother, Highschool, a job, relationships and her passion for cooking.
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I really love Acevedos stories. The characters are flawed and relatable. The writing style is so beautiful and the topics are heavy but dealt with in this simple “this is life, how are we going to deal with it” kind of way. Emoni has been thrust onto that grow up now precipice earlier than many teenagers when she has “babygirl” (Emma). She is trying to finish highschool, looking at college, working to provide and contribute to the household and being a badass fierce momma. It helps that she has a bestie like Laura and an Abuela who is supportive and encouraging.
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She has a complicated relationship with her father who left her and her Abuela and moved back to Puerto Rico shortly after her mother died. She has a complicated relationship with her daughters father, and is trying to create and keep this civil environment for her. One of the central themes is the parent/child relationship and how it can affect the kids.
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As this is a book for potentially younger readers just be aware there is some talk of drugs, alcohol, some colourful language and sex.
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I once again HIGHLY recommend this one! You like the culinary arts? You like to travel? You like learning about other cultures and situations? You like strong, badass women? You like beautiful prose? This is for you.

I received this book from the author Dana Noraas after winning a giveaway on her IG page. I was super stoked that after I couldn’t get the e book she sent me a signed copy. ( @dbhorrorwriter )

This book was really well written. There were a lot of themes touched on here that made me very uncomfortable, but in a really scary/spooky way. I found the writing was equatable to old school campfire scary stories. I really liked Lingering Things and Apex. I read this book at our family cabin and now I’m afraid to sleep.


This book is absolutely not for everyone. But if you love horror stories, and things that make you squirm then definitely pick up a copy of this book

The Speed of Falling Objects-Nancy Richardson Fischer

𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠, 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑠, 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒.

𝐷𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠.

I finished this book last night. I normally try to do my reviews immediately after I finish a book because I have a fuzzy memory sometimes (even with notes I like the fresh emotions to write reviews). I finished this book and I didn’t know how to put into words how I felt.

This book was fantastic. It truly was. The writing was wonderful. There were numerous quotes I fell in love with and the characters were real (in the sense that they could be real people with real flaws). The whole premise was terrifying and what the characters endured and lost was often unbearable. Their plane crashes in the Amazon and they have to beat the odds and survive when every thing is against them.

Where I struggled was with Danny’s relationship with her parents. She does her best and does truly love Danny, but she seems to often make decisions based on spite. A loving mother who had Danny young and gave up her dreams to raise her. We get views of her resentment towards Cougar, her using Danny as a pawn under the guise that she doesn’t want her to be hurt by Cougar and her rigid “love” that feels lukewarm at best. She redeems herself by silently making Cougar seem like a half decent father when he is barely even that. Then We have Cougar who at first comes off as a charismatic man, the light in the room kind of man. He’s a star on television and thinks highly of himself. But he is a man who abandoned his family when things got tough. He uses, puts down and humiliates Danny when she is with him. She sees him a handful of times since her accident and when she does it’s definitely not warm and fuzzy. Cougar is a narcissist and his love for Danny is mirrored as love for himself, her flaws reflect poorly on him and he constantly makes her feel insecure about herself. I immediately wanted to be on her moms side, and most of the book I hated Cougar. His ability to abandon his child left me feeling angry. Danny’s need and longing for his love, and her feelings of worthlessness and shame made me feel angrier. The author made these parents real. Their flaws and their love felt like a true to life sad story about parents who’s child gets caught in the crossfire.

In the end I admired Danny’s strength and ability to find herself, accept the things she couldn’t change and let go of the past hurt. She is a broken girl who becomes this fierce woman. As a character her growth and personality were fantastic imo. Her relationship with Gus was cute. I loved how his character progressed. Personally, out of everyone I adored Jupiter. 100% he is someone I could hang out with in the real world.

Truth.

This post apocalyptic fairy tale was beautiful.

The man and the girl live in the wilderness as (what is assumed) the last two people al ie after the woman dies. They live off of the land and he teaches her how to survive.

He tells her tales of the bear, the past and her mother. Many of the stories are whimsical and have a very magical feel to them. They weave their way into the main story when a bear shows up to the girl.

This book had very heavy “The Road” feelings, yet the complete lack of people made it feel bigger and emptier.

I loved the centralization around love and grief, gratitude and giving. This simple life lived in a somewhat symbiotic way, was just beautiful.

I loved the anonymity of the nameless characters. It makes them relatable to anyone. I did find the lack of parenthesis for dialogue frustrating but the flow of the story and the language made up for it.

Well. I finished this book on Wednesday night. I put it down. Caught my breath. And tried to get to sleep. Normally I write my reviews immediately after I read a book. The ideas, views and information is fresh in my mind and I am able to put into words how a book makes me feel. This book, it left me speechless.


This book centres around Indian people in Oakland. It begins taking on small journeys into each characters lives to see who they are. We see perspectives from “urban Indians” as they navigate who they are, where they come from and where they are going. Their lives are all entwined and they are all connected. Brought together by the Big Oakland Pow Wow these characters teach you values about humanity, compassion for human nature, they break your heart and make you think hard about the history you’ve been taught. The symbolism each person talks about in their lives is beautiful, and sad the way they correspond with tragedies or dark parts of their life.


Honestly this book left me on a state of, unsettledness. The first part of the book was slow, the flow was soft and the characters spent time poetically showing us themselves. The third part of the book had short, brief chapters that made the Chaos and brutality make your heart beat faster and faster.


I absolutely recommend everyone read this book. I hope there is more from Tommy Orange in the future!

Thank you to Juliet Cutler book sparks (Booksharks) and She Writes Press for this copy of Among the Maasai for my honest review during this Booksharks Instagram Pop-up tour.

Among the Maasai is a eye opening memoir about a young woman’s journey to Tanzania during the late 1990’s to teach at the first secondary school for Maasai girls. She has high hopes for bettering the girls lives but she finds herself learning just as much or more than the girls about status,inequality and privilege. A journey to save and better these girls lives becomes a personal growth and soul searching experience.

This book was fantastic. Learning about another culture. Learning acceptance and compassion. There are some huge issues underlined in this book and at times it was a very hard read. But the awareness it gave me was so eye opening. The number one takeaway is how important empowerment through education is.

I thought a lot towards the end of this book about privilege. My 13 year old has days where she is very “meh” about going to school. As was I at her age. I could feel the young women in this books determination and appreciation of their education and it made me feel guilty for how easily we take advantage of education in Western culture. I thought the way Juliet explained her struggles with respecting a culture and trying to make these girls life better was vivid and so well written. The fine line between what we believe is right and what someone wants is so fine and the constant back and forth battle to keep it level is just insane.


This was absolutely a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 read. This book is now available where ever books are sold and all proceeds go to helping Maasai girls. There are a few TW is recommend you check out before you begin, but I implore you to please read this book if you are able to. I spent the last 20 pages covered in Goosebumps and fighting back tears.