wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

A very sweet retelling of Little Women from the perspective of an American-Pakistani family living in Georgia in modern day - we follow Jameela as she has to deal with some changes in ehr life including her father's long distance job, and a new kid called Ali. She also needs to deal with everything that comes with having 3 sisters - Maryam, Aleeza and Bisma, while vying to become the next editor-in-chief of her school newspaper.

This was just a lovely book that I definitely enjoyed for the short time it took to read it. The Little Women elements were done well, and I feel like some characters more than others were brilliantly crafted to be very much like their LW counterparts - Aleeza most of all, she was very Amy without being petty or mean. Just a slightly spoiled little girl who still loves her family.

I loved the family moments in this book, from the various conversations Jam had with her Baba and how close they were, to how they looked after Bisma when she got ill. I also really appreciated the look of extended family and family friends who were like aunts and uncle flocking to help the family when they needed them - it was honestly lovely.

There are some really nice, important moments in this book that would serve a younger reader really well such as Jam's experience with casual racism and her response to teach her school about micro-aggressions. I liked how Jam's school newspaper experience was portrayed as well in the book, and I think if I was a younger kid reading the book in a country where schools had their own newspapers, I would be tempted to join in. 

I received this book from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Everyone knows the Rivas - they were broke and gorgeous, and now they're rich, famous and gorgeous. And on the night of the famous Riva summer party in 1983, things are going to get wild - people will get high, drunk and completely messed up, long lost fathers will walk back into their children's lives, and hearts will be broken and repaired. It will be a night of reckoning, especially for the Rivas.

I loved this - and it was no surprise as I feel like Taylor Jenkins Reid has really honed her writing craft over the past few books, and she has found the type of story and characters she loves to present to the world, and she does it so damn well.

This book is not about the children of a famous musician. Well, it is and it isn't - it's about a family who happen to be biologically connected to someone too selfish to parent and instead, turn to one another to love and support. This book is so full of emotion from love and lust, to longing and heartbreak as well as the suffering you put yourself because of your love for others. All of the Riva children were special in their own way, and while the main focus seemed to be on Nina, I loved getting time with all of them - and would actually love more time with them as well if there were ever any spin-off books about Kit or even Casey.

You don't have to read other Taylor Jenkins Reid's books to read this one but there were some fantastic easter eggs that let you know the Rivas existed in the same world as Evelyn Hugo which is just something I LOVE when authors too. It feels exciting, and like you're a part of something cool and secret.

Taylor Jenkins Reid also has an ability like no other to create characters who are beautiful and flawed but so big and bright, they feel very real and when you stop reading the book, you almost go through a grieving process when you realise you can't go to the store and buy a Mick Riva album or google Nina Riva's modelling shoots to see if she was that beautiful. It's just a talent to not only create amazing characters on paper but to do it in a way that they become living, breathing entities in a reader's head - that they sit in front of them on the couch, or on the edge of the bed and narrate their own story.

I felt like I was floating in the surf on a Malibu beach, the sun beaming down on me and the salty taste of the sea on my lips when I was reading this, and I absolutely fell into the pages and swam into the words the second I started reading it and I just could not put it down. 

 I received this book from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Marta, a lowly peasant girl, flees from her abusive master and finds solace in the home of a Lutheran priest, she has no idea that the next steps she takes will end up in her becoming the mistress of Peter - the Tsar of all Russia. Over the next twenty years, Marta will become Catherine, Tsarina and Empress of Russia and be at Peter's side, bearing his children and watching his terrible deeds until she becomes the first female Empress after his death.

This was a very interesting historical fiction that spanned a time and place in history I know very little about. It was truly fascinating learning about the decades of Peter and Catherine's rule - the debauchery, the war mongery as well as the attempts at growing a new city (St Petersburg) and the ever terrible weight of producing a healthy son for an heir.

The style of this book was in one I really enjoy when it comes to historical fiction - a very detailed description of Marta's life and her rise to power, with the ever looming threat with every dead son or pretty mistress, that could spell her end. Marta as a character was one you could easily like, a gentle, intelligent person who happened to be connected to a malicious, weak man, and what she could have done if she lived in a time when women were truly free and educated. That's not to say she didn't have her flaws and there were moments in this that highlighted simple cruelty towards other humans as well as animals that were uncomfortable and unpleasant to read about.

While I enjoyed this book, just over halfway through it became a bit of slog to read as I felt like a lot of the story was very much the same (Peter being an arse about something, going to war and Catherine becoming pregnant). There are parts of the story I think that could have been skipped and others that would have benefited from more time. I definitely preferred reading about Marta's early life and her earlier time with Peter as his mistress. 

 This book was disappointing as I had high hopes for it because I just love a story that's set around mermaids and while I loved that Parthenope was ruthless and scary in this, and not opposed to trashing a man now and again, the main reason I disliked this story and eventually DNF'd it is because of Pearla.

Now, I understand the story is focusing on Pearla's hang ups about her age and how she is really insecure in her aging body but I was just so uncomfortable with some of the comments made in this book, and honestly they would make you feel a bit crap about yourself if you weren't anything above a size 0. Pearla compares a young woman's body at one point to a 'soft serve ice cream cone' and marvels at the girl's self-confidence for having fun on the beach with a fat body. Ew. There was also another character who called herself fat because she's a size FOUR instead of the zero she used to be. I'll repeat that - a SIZE FOUR.

When Pearla began to have some fun with her youthful face, and she started getting followed by the creepy sales assistant - I said enough is enough. I could tell the story was going to get silly, I was already not on board with Pearla at all and her fatphobia, and while the writing is fine, it could definitely be tighter and the story more structured. In the first 5% we had already met Parthenope and had a rushed info dump into why Pearla hated her life - the start could have definitely been better laid out. 

I received this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In 1946,Edith travels to Lubeck, Germany, to help set up schools for German children and the displaced young in a country still reeling from war and an ultimate loss. But Edith also has another mission, find a former beau of her youth who became to be a Nazi doctor and is now wanted by the British and Americans, as well as the Russians. In the form of recipes, Edith relays information back to her handlers as she embarks on a journey of danger, espionage and treachery.

This book started off a bit clunky for me but it grew stronger and stronger until I was hooked onto the pages, and could not put it down. At the start of the book, the story felt a bit weak and confusing for me as we were getting a lot of names that didn't mean anything yet and because we were meeting people Edith already had wartime connections with, it kind of felt we were being thrown into the middle of a conversation and trying to catch a thread.

However, as soon as Edith arrived in Germany and her work began, I felt myself really hooked by the story. I don't think I've read many other books set in Germany directly after WW2 when the country was completely devastated, civilians and refugees were starving and desperate and there was no government to run anything so the Brits and Americans who had their own interests in mind were doing a lot of the controlling.

I really liked the viewpoint of this - Celia Rees didn't shy away from the awful, hard to imagine, deeds of Nazi officers and doctors, as well as the sneakiness of the civilians who worshipped Hitler and his ilk. But she also made clear the suffering of the average German, and the people who were left to pick up the pieces when the SS did a runner, leaving a broken country behind them. I also really appreciated that neither the Brits or Americans were the big heroes in this tale - in fact, they were both as slimy and treacherous as each other and out for their own gain rather than making someone actually pay for what they did (which honestly was scream-inducing).

The female characters in this book are excellent - in fact, it is a female driven novel with the males just swooping in now and again to receive or give information or just be there as a brief distraction in the form of love making. Edith, Adeline and Dori were all fabulous characters and all different from each other - Edith, gentle yet intelligent, Dori smart and ruthless and Adeline was the sweeter one but ready to tell a story no matter how hard it would be. And then we had Elizabeth, Molly and Frau Schmidt on the other side - very different women but all powerful and big on the page in their own way.

As I said earlier, the story builds as plans are made and we are eventually standing on an Italian balcony with Edith not knowing what is about to happen. This book doesn't have a lot of action or gunfire, instead it is of hidden code, and fake smiles and an espionage built by women both good and evil.

Around the chapter 40 mark, I went back and read the very first chapter again as I suspected something (I was right) and it made the end even more thrilling for me.

I really enjoyed this, a different type of WW2 novel from ones I've read before where the real heroes are the women who joined up in bravery to go behind enemy lines and much more often than not, they never came back. 

This book is just so beautiful in its gentleness, I can't even describe it.

When Paddy and Kit Gladney's daughter Moll leaves the house one day and doesn't return, they are shattered. Moll had a lovely childhood, and she was cherished and never had reason to run away yet they hear nothing from her until five years later, when she walks back through the front gate. In the days following. the couple learn where Moll has been and what has happened in her life as she's joined by a man and child and they all become family again.

Donal Ryan's writing, and his way of slowly revealing the full story through these simple glimpses from each character, is just so wonderful, and I love his style of writing. How gorgeous yet simple it is all at the same time. There was a loveliness to this book that made me smile and my heart felt warm while at the same time, an undercurrent of suffering and sadness that would make you want to rip your chest open.

Alexander was an absolutely wonderful character, and I loved the friendship, father/son relationship he struck up with Paddy and the shocked yet lovely acceptance of him, as the first black men many people had ever seen, into the village and how he became part of life. Paddy and Alexander's stories and later on Kit's were probably my favourite. I was surprised by Moll's story and where it went and while I didn't mind it, she was definitely the hardest character to like, followed by Joshu.

I just really enjoyed this book, and it has really reaffirmed my faith in Donal Ryan's story-telling and how everything he writes touches me in some way because it's all so beautiful while still being uniquely his own.

When Noriko Morishita was 20 years old, she began to take Tea lessons with her sensei. During her long years as a student, she learned what it means to take Tea, and the subtle art and ritual that combines sitting down and making it, and enjoying it with others.

This was a delightful, gentle read that I'm so glad I picked up as I really enjoyed my time with Noriko as she told us about her Tea journey - and the peace and loveliness I felt reading really reflected some of the lessons she was passing on that she had learnt herself as a Tea student.

I knew nothing about Tea in Japan going into this, and learned quickly it's different to the type of breakfast tea that's my morning ritual. But no matter what type of hot or cold drink you prefer to have in life, I think there's a lot to take from this book as it's about appreciating the time to relax and release your worries; to go somewhere, take your shoes off at the door, and escape from everything else for a while.

One of the things that really grew for me in my reading was I can't wait to travel to Japan, and try some of the tweet treats Noriko talked about as the Japanese delicacies and the intricate design details that goes into making the sweets look like other things, sounded amazing!

I highly recommend this. I found it a really lovely read, really well translated and Noriko's voice is friendly with a touch of humour and a smile. 

In the year 1967, four female scientists make a breakthrough with time travel and before too long, travelling through time becomes commonplace in everyday society. But when Barbara, one of the pioneers suffers a breakdown, she's ousted from the Conclave and left alone for the rest of her life. Now in her eighties, Barbara, with the help of her granddaughter Ruby, is determined to return to life's work again.

This was really nicely paced and well-written book and I felt really connected to the story, the characters and I wanted to know what was going on. I love that all the characters we follow in this book are female, and all strong and bright in their own ways and the introduction of a murder mystery with a time travel element was so intriguing.

The way Kate Mascarenhas created her ideal time travelling world from the rules and regulations, to the science, the hygiene, the paradoxes - it was just splendid and it genuinely felt very real and not far-fetched.

I also appreciated the inclusion of a female-female relationship at the forefront of the story, as well as the inclusion of some non-white characters like Lucille tough she certainly took a back seat and i feel likeLucille deserves a spin-off story just for her.

I really enjoyed this book and I liked how it all wrapped up. I feel like maybe I wanted a bit more for Barbara as I feel like through the entirety of the book, she was always short-changed.