whatskatiereading's Reviews (521)

WHEN THE APRICOTS BLOOM is listed as historical fiction, but honestly this felt kind of like a thriller to me. The book follows Huda, Raina, and Ally and takes place in Iraq in 2002. The three women’s lives intersect, but they all have secrets that can tear their worlds apart.

This book has a lot of secrets, a lot of “sitting on the edge of your seat” moments where you’re hoping the women find a way to make it out of the situation safely. Each of the women’s stories captured my attention, but I found myself really rooting for Huda especially. The story talks a lot about the secret police under Saddam Hussein’s regime, so there’s some mention of violence that some readers might not feel comfortable reading. Overall I found the book to be really interesting and thought the writing was phenomenal. 

One thing I was a little unsure of going into the book was a white woman writing about the experiences of two Iraqi women. The author’s note was really helpful in explaining that the book is drawn on her experiences of living in Iraq in a similar situation that the American/Australian character Ally was in. The author also acknowledges the need for “diverse books, written by diverse authors, in settings and situations that reflect the deep richness of our world”.  Reading that put my mind at ease a little bit, but that does not mean this is the only book set in a Middle Eastern country that I will be reading this year. I’m looking forward to reading more books set in the Middle East by authors who are from the region. Thank you Bookish First and Kensington for my copy of WHEN THE APRICOTS BLOOM 

Full review to come. Found the book to be problematic in a handful of different ways. 

This collection of short stories was the perfect book to get me into a reading groove to kick off the year. LAND OF BIG NUMBERS gives us ten stories about Chinese people varying in age, class, gender, and location. While I know that no one book can completely cover the varying experiences of Chinese people, I enjoyed learning more about Chinese culture, government, and customs through these stories. Especially those that differ by generation and class. 

While all of the stories were enjoyable, my favorites were “On the Street Where You Live” and “Gubeikou Spirit”. The former had a bit of a thriller vibe and I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next. Now that all of the GameStop stuff has happened, I found myself thinking back to the story “Land of Big Numbers”. That story follows a you g man who gets caught up in the stock market. A really interesting read for anyone who is familiar with the current stock market events. 

Overall I loved this book and I hope to see lots of people reading it! Thank you Bookish First and HMH Books for my copy of LAND OF BIG NUMBERS! 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book but there are a LOT of content warnings.