hillysreads's Reviews (381)

A Good Neighborhood is merely about a biracial boy, Xavier, and his momma, Valerie, living in an all white neighborhood in the south. He ends up falling for his neighbor, Juniper who is a white girl that has a purity vow and can’t date. Her stepdad is rich, overly obsessive and racist.

This is what this book is: a perspective of racism from a white author and she got it all wrong.

So I bet you can put the pieces together. The biggest issue I have with this book is how unrealistic it is.

I noticed it right off the bat with the character development and the structure of the story. The build up that lead to a tragic ending was so...cut & dry. The book was definitely a slow build but part 3 (final part) of the book was so rushed and missing so many details that it didn’t even make sense how the story ended the way it did. And I absolutely hated the ending. Horrible.

I feel that the author made Brad (the stepdad) so blatantly racist that is was too unreal. I don’t think I have been so disturbed by a character but Brads character DISTURBED me.

Valerie and Xaviers characters are what bothered me the most, these characters just didn’t seem real to me either. Xavier at the beginning of the book was a different character by the end of the book. The typical & obvious stereotypes throughout this book

Conjure Women takes place in the Civil War era and the chapters are broken up by freedomtime/war time/slaverytime. Rue and her mother Miss May Belle were healers and would conjure up magic heal, help, or hurt people; Miss May Belle was a healer on the plantation during slaverytime and after she died, Rue took the healing powers she learned from her mother into her own hands during freedomtime.

Miss May Belle was a strong, powerful and wise women - everyone, white and black came to her for healing. The magical things this women did people to heal them and help them escape were amazing.

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstances was such fun book to read. It’s full of wolves, nature, love, weirdness and magic ✨Weylyn’s parents pass away and he is placed in foster care but he ends up running away to live in the woods to be raised by wolves. Weylyn is not your average person, he can do magical things like stop a tornado

I won’t be doing a full review of this book but it took me a while to read this one. I started it back in May and never finished it. Finally got to finishing the last 100 pages. This is a great book, the author did a great job writing this story of Jesus and Ana.

This is a book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for a long while and I kept saying I was going to read it and then I never did. So I FINALLY got around to reading it even though it took me a bit to finish it.

Short synopsis:
Ernt is a Vietnam POW vet with severe PTSD; he can’t keep a job, he moves his family from place to place because he wants to find a home for all of them to be “happy”. Well, this opportunity arises for Ernt and his family to move to Alaska. He feels that this is their moment to finally find their happiness. So Ernt, his wife Cora and their teenage daughter Lenora (Leni) move to Alaska. Now, let me just say that a POW Vietnam vet with PTSD living in the long month’s of cold and wintery, snowy darkness do NOT mix. From the beginning, I could tell this was going to be a heart-wrenching story.

The first half of the book was a slow start, it didn’t start getting interesting for me until midway through the book. I had to get the audiobook to keep me engaged in the story because I would read a chapter or two and put it down because it just wasn’t catching my attention.

About half way into the book, the pace quickened and I got really interested in the story. One thing happened after another, the characters and the intensity of the storyline is what kept me hooked for the 2nd half of the book. This book is super emotional

Mexican Gothic was the first horror novel I've read in a very long time. I used to read R.L. Stine when I was in middle school but haven't picked up a horror book since then. Mexican Gothic is nothing like R.L. Stine though.

Homecoming will go down as one of my favorite books ever written. I rarely cry while reading books but I bawled like a baby reading this book. From beginning to end, every page, every character, every story was extraordinarily written. I honestly do not feel that I can do a review that would do this book justice so, this review is not going to be like the other reviews I write.

Homecoming is a book you need to experience for yourself. I truly believe this book should be required to be read in all high schools across the US, across the world. Every character's story was impactful; I can't even put into words how these stories made me feel as a black woman knowing that my ancestors had similar experiences. This one hit me at my core & rocked it hard. Words cannot express how much I loved reading Homegoing & how much I loved and felt for each character, their stories, and experiences.

If you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend you read it ASAP and keep it on your bookshelf to re-read one day. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I usually struggle with literary fiction and I try to stay away from the genre because it’s so confusing to me. But Toni Morrison is quickly changing my mind.

As I was reading Sula, I’m not going to lie, I was lost AF. Every chapter Toni would switch it up majorly and she would lose me. The book takes place in a small town called Medallion, Ohio; the black people live in the “Bottom” side of the town. It starts out with a WWI veteran story, his name is Shadrack and he invents National Suicide Day because he is trying to cope with his fear of death from the war. Then the story switches up to Helena and her daughter Nel taking a trip down south to visit Helen's mother who abandoned her as a child, left her with her grandmother. Then it switches up to the start of Nel and Sula’s friendship. Nel and Sula have a very special bond and friendship. The choices they make cause great consequences.

Toni Morrison will give you bits and pieces of the story before it comes together in a full circle in the end. It’s like she walks around the plot instead of giving it to you straight. After reading other reviews on Sula, I started to understand what Sula was all about. It’s a very interesting story even though it’s confusing, her writing is beautiful and she can tell a powerful story that will stick with you. I enjoyed this one.

Ask again, yes is full of emotions, family, love, family drama, mental illness, and much more. It starts off when the two main characters Peter and Kate are kids, living next to one other and are best friends., they both have a very special relationship. Their dads are cops and were partners at one point so their families know one another. One night, their friendship changes dramatically when an unexpected event occurs and Peter is forced to move away. They eventually find one another again but with that brings up painful history. The book takes place over a span of years and the perspective of the characters change throughout the book from both Peter and Kate’s families.

I was really connected to the characters throughout the book, that was one of the main aspects that I loved about Ask again, yes. The character development was great and each character grew throughout the book and had reflections about life and relationships. This book was really slow for me though, I kept waiting for something to happen, for the pace to speed up. The characters were engaging but the plot was kind of “meh”