hillysreads's Reviews (381)

One of my favorite reads of 2022 was The Hacienda. I kept seeing it was being compared to Mexican Gothic, another one of my favorite books, so I just had to read it! The Hacienda was definitely different from Mexican Gothic. Both books had a spooky, gothic feel but Mexican Gothic was more creepy and dreamlike to me while The Hacienda was filled with horror that scared the shit out of me! I am also a baby when it comes to scary stuff

I really enjoyed reading The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina. It was so magical and mysterious; the author really kept me guessing trying to find out who Orquidea really was and how she got her powers and magic. It was a slow start - the story started to get very interesting about 50-60 pages in. There are A LOT of characters - it was really hard to keep up with all the them but I am glad there was a family tree at the beginning of the book to help me keep up. I would say that this is the one thing that really bothered me about this book - all the characters and they were kind of one-dimensional. Since there were so many characters, it made it hard to connect with any of them. Also, the book is pretty action-packed but sometimes it got a little too much and I got lost and confused while reading and had to go back to re-read a lot to make sure I understood the scene correctly.

A lot of the book takes place in Ecuador; I loved how the author describes the country, she transported me right to Ecuador. There is a lot of backstory in this book and it is pretty adventurous. It was a good book to read and I highly recommend it however, just go into this book knowing there are a lot of characters and it can be a little chaotic at times. But if you like magical realism, definitely add it to your list

Nightcrawling is about a young Black girl living in Oakland, struggling to survive, and trying to find a way to support herself, her brother, and her kid neighbor. This is a hot one on bookstagram right now & I can see why.

Nightcrawling is slow and intense, a dark, sad, and heartbreaking read - you really have to be in the mood for it. I was blown away by the writing, it is beautiful and poetic. The words and the story captivated me within the first few pages.

However, Nightcrawling was hard to read. I felt very uncomfortable reading this, cringing at times because of what Kiara went through…and just as a child. She was 17 years old and was trying to make it on her own. Doing whatever it took to pay the rent and put some food on the table. She had to grow up so fast and make decisions she should have never had to make. I would get so pissed and put the book down every few days. Each time she had an interaction with those corrupt cops…I had to step away for a bit. But as I would take a few days to break from reading it, I would still be thinking about Kiara and her story. And I still am, this book will stick with me for a while.

“No one gives you anything in life, Teresa would say, you have to take it by force, and as soon as you get careless they’ll take it back.”

Reading books like Violeta reminds me of why I love reading historical fiction so much. I love how the author took me through Violeta’s whole life; from the time she was born in 1920 during the Spanish flu pandemic all the way through the year 2020 during the COVID pandemic. Violeta was a strong, passionate woman and I loved her sense of humor. She lived through some of the most significant historical/political events. And I loved how the author wove in those events with Violeta's story, it made the book feel so much more nonfiction than fiction - I kinda felt like I was reading a memoir. I also never read a book based in South America (it’s mainly set in Chile and Argentina) before so I learned a lot and reminds me that America never teaches us anything about any other countries smh

Oh my goodness. This book made me sooo angry. It took me two weeks to finish this book, it was so good and I couldn’t wait to finish it, but it made me so mad that I had to put it down every couple of days! The situations that Ray went through especially with his family and his mom were infuriating! The Violin Conspiracy kept me guessing and kept me on my toes and I loved that. But that ending had me