emilyisoverbooked's Reviews (1.38k)

Jack is looking for a second chance when he arrives at Kingfisher Lodge, located in Colorado behind a locked gate on Billionaire's Mile, right next to the property with the “Don’t Get Shot!” sign and barbed wire. While Jack thinks he is going to enjoy nature and guide wealthy lodgers on their fishing expeditions, he is in for something much more sinister than that.

The premise of this book sounded really interesting to me, especially with the fun setting. However, I just couldn’t get into it… it’s not a long book, but it was just not really holding my attention. I do love that he covered so much in less than 300 pages - it’s really difficult to craft a good story in that amount of text. And it was a good story! Just not one for me.

Thank you to Knopf for the copy of this book.

An excellent family drama debut, We Are the Brennans follows the story of Sunday Brennan, who comes back home after getting into a drunk driving accident on the other side of the country. As she’s trying to piece her life back together, ghosts of the past come back to haunt, past relationships won’t stay in the past, and the family struggles to move forward together.

I really loved everything about this book. I absolutely did not want to put it down because I found it so compelling. I love that the chapters were from so many different points of view, creating a 360-degree look at all of the interwoven problems the family was experiencing. The impact of one decision in a large family often does not only impact one person, and even has the potential to rip the family apart. I was rooting for Sunday’s tragic story the entire time, and can’t wait for more from Tracey Lange!

“I wonder if maybe all you do is meet people and lose them and your smile fades the further you go because you have to carry the space they leave. Maybe it all just turns into old pictures on a bookshelf, engraved rings, memories of sticking stars to a ceiling, and maybe the space gets bigger and heavier every year.”

Wow! What a thought-provoking (historical fiction, really?! I feel old) novel. This book resonated with me, as April’s story has a lot of similarities to someone close to me, and Ithaca is a stone’s throw away. Allison Larkin’s writing is compelling, leaving me wanting more and invoking so many emotions. I found myself hopeful for April, unwilling to leave her side until I knew she’d have her chosen family and would finally make it home. I’ll be thinking about this novel for some time to come.

Sunflower Sisters is the third and final book in the Lilac Girls series, but can be read as a standalone novel as well. It takes place in the Civil War-era United States and follows three intertwining storylines: Georgy, a Civil War nurse who trained under Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S., Jemma, a slave on the Peeler Plantation, and Anne-May, the mistress of Peeler Plantation.

This story is a vivid recounting of the Civil War era, capturing the experiences of women in very different positions and linking them together in a creative way. Throughout the book, it was fascinating to to learn what these womens' experiences would be like healing wounds on the battlefield, sneaking away with Union soldiers, navigating a vast political divide, and bearing the heavy expectations for women in that day. The coolest part is that Martha Hall Kelly used actual letters from this era to create this story and included some of the actual text in the book! If you’re a history buff or enjoy historical fiction, this would be a great read for you! And I definitely vote paperback because this bad boy is thick at 544 pages

“We’re all migrants here on earth.”

Elena and Mauro come to the United States with hope in their eyes for a better future and to be able to support family back in Colombia. But constant moving, job changes while being shortchanged on wages, and showering in gas stations begins to dull the glimmer of hope. Then, deportation changes the trajectory of more than one generation of family.

Infinite Country is an intricate, intimate look at a Colombian’s family journey through devastation, immigration, and deportation. Colombian folklore weaves its way through a journey of hope and heartbreak, and a very realistic look into life as an immigrant in the United States. This is an important read and has so much packed into 256 pages. If the opening line of “It was her idea to tie up the nun” doesn’t captivate you right away, I don’t know what will!

“‘It has been observed that birds feel a sort of pain before taking off, almost like fear,”…perhaps fear,” he remarks to himself, “‘and that nothing alleviates that feeling except the rapid motion of wings.’”

W o w. No Land to Light On was one of my top reads of 2021, and for good reason.

Sama and Hadi are living the American dream, finally in a country where they were promised a story of freedom and becoming. Until one day, Sama is pregnant and waiting at the airport for Hadi to return from Jordan to bury his father… and the Muslim ban (Executive Order 13769) is put into place. Chaos erupts, leaving Sama panicked and trying to protect her growing baby in a crowd of protestors at the airport, and leaving Hadi detained and put back on a plane to Jordan. This story was heart-wrenching and beautiful at the same time, woven with news flashes, Sama’s research on migratory birds, and the emotional rollercoaster of Sama and Hadi’s lives in Syria and as immigrants in the US. The tragedy of the war in Syria and the Muslim ban are present-day tragedies that come to life through this story, and will leave you with a new sense of what freedom and home really mean.

Thank you to Atria books for this beautiful ARC.