This is another book that isn't easy to rate.

It's a quick read, like all McManus books. I feel like this one is not as clear as some of her other books - possibly because all of the Story children have "A" names and that makes it easy to confuse the identity of Jonah's father and Aubrey's father.

As far as the three main characters are concerned, I found Aubrey the most likable. Milly felt a bit vapid and then wound up to not have much of a character at all, as did Jonah. Milly's and Jonah's interactions didn't feel as realistic as any interactions involving Aubrey. Things also get complicated by the introduction of Allison's point of view (that's Milly's mother) from 24 years before. I didn't mind the time skips back and forth, but it made for a lot to keep up with in the midst of confusing names and a mystery that didn't seem to fully develop as an actual mystery until about 200 pages in.

I feel like several chapters of this book could have been removed and we'd still have the same story. It feels like a synopsis stretched too thin over too many pages. I haven't felt that way about a McManus book before.

That said, I'm not bashing the book. I enjoyed reading it. I've enjoyed discussing it with a friend even more. I would have preferred a little more balance in the plot, a bit more description of the setting, and parent names that weren't so similar.

I'm definitely going to continue to read everything McManus writes.

This book is the type of story so many young people need to read but so few can find. It's not often we see books about young fathers, especially young black fathers.

Angie Thomas doesn't shy away from the tough stuff. We should all know that by now. Concrete Rose is a prequel to [b:The Hate U Give|32075671|The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)|Angie Thomas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1476284759l/32075671._SY75_.jpg|49638190] and it focuses on Maverick Carter. Fans of Starr Carter will love her father just as much as they do her, but I want to be clear that "Mav" shines as a character in his own right. Even if this were a standalone book, it would stand loud and proud all on its own merit.

Maverick has grown up in the gang life. His family are King Lords. It's all he knows and it's all that will keep him safe. So, Mav is a King Lord too. He and his best friend sell a little weed with the gang, but they also sling some of the harder stuff on the side in order to make money. And boy, does Mav need money, because his best friend's infant son just might be HIS infant son. Money is already tight since his Pops is in jail for 40 to life. A baby won't make anything any easier.

I love how this book takes an unflinching look at the difficulties of poverty, urban decay, gang life as a means of survival, the drive for revenge, love for family, and the consequences of our mistakes. What makes this book stellar is its supporting cast of adult characters who may not have life all figured out, but who are supportive without trying to "fix" Maverick. These are the kind of role models that so many teenagers need in their lives.

This is a beautiful story. It's shorter than its companion novel and the writing took me (a middle class white woman and an English teacher) a little while to get used to. Almost no present tense verbs use -s or -es and it took me a while to wrap my head around it. I am, however, glad to see a popular book that is narrated in the way that many of my students speak. For those that have difficulty with the writing style, I recommend the audiobook. I didn't listen to it here, but I'm familiar with the narrator and I know this story is worth absorbing, no matter if you read it with your eyes or your ears.

A five star book, but the last ten or so pages were really weird to me.

This was Thanksgiving Read=a-Thon Book Two for me and I'll write more once I'm done with my reading challenge.

I'll be thinking about the end of this story for a while.

The Road, without spoiling the book for you, is a story of humanity in an inhumane world. The Man and The Boy wander the road after a nameless calamity. It doesn't matter anymore what caused this complete and utter devastation. The world is a burned out shell regardless. Most of humanity is assumed to be dead.

Our two unnamed characters wander the road in search of the coast and a warmer climate for winter. The Man pushes himself hard, sacrificing all along the way, to try to reach some sort of better environment for the boy, although no one is sure that there's anything better to be found. There is only the road, the ash, the cold, and the rain and wind. The Boy talks about finding the Good Guys out there somewhere, but they never seem to find any and when they do find other people, the Man can hardly stand to be a Good Guy himself.

It's an unimaginably harsh and desolate story told in the most loving and gentle way, without any spare words but somehow still full of metaphor and beauty.

I encourage you to pick it up and read it.

I didn't realize 48 pages could rip my heart out.

I should have.

I am familiar with the story of Alan "Kurdi", or at least as familiar as I can be while living thousands of miles away, having never experienced a violent devastation of my homeland or a desperate attempt to escape and survive. I have never traded certain death for probable death and hoped for the best.

This is the story of a father, much like Alan's father, who wishes his son could remember the city of Homs before it was destroyed. This is the story of a father who wishes his son didn't know the difference between dried and fresh blood or how light stretches through the slats of concrete and metal that used to be someone's home. This is the story of a father who prays for his son's safety as they live in a world that is anything but safe.

This story is inspired by one small boy, one toddler who washed up dead on the shores of Turkey after his family chose to trade probable death for certain death. But Alan was just one boy. That same year he perished, some 4,176 more died or went missing making the same journey.

And yet here I sit in a country of prosperity, where I had too much for supper and saved my leftovers for whenever I don't feel like cooking, where I have sure electricity and I am certain my home will be safe tonight. Here I sit in a country that is just like Alan's country used to be, with a mosque and a church down the corner, where different people find a way to live together and live together well. Here I sit in a country that for the grace of God could be the same as Alan's country was in 2015.

And here I sit in a country that banned the resettlement and travel of the vast majority of refugees.

Tonight I cry for Alan, for this fictional father whose prayer represents the prayers of thousands of real fathers. Tonight I cry. Tomorrow I see what I can do about it.

Read this book. You'll hate that it has to exist, but maybe it will spark a prayer in your heart too. Inshallah.

You should snatch this book up while it's free on Kindle Unlimited.

I'm a huge fantasy reader. It's my favorite genre. Since I'm trying to push myself to read more widely, I only reward myself now with the occasional fantasy book. I'm glad I chose this one.

This story definitely has Hades and Persephone vibes and I can see why it's marketed to people who enjoyed [b:A Court of Thorns and Roses|16096824|A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)|Sarah J. Maas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546406962l/16096824._SY75_.jpg|21905102], though I don't think the writing style is similar enough to merit a direct relationship between the books. Those who like ACOTAR may very well not like this author's style and vice-versa.

I loved the world building in this book and it left me wanting more. The story works perfectly as a stand-alone novel. It would be stretched too thin if it had to cover more than one book. I'm very glad to see there will be more books set in the realm of Midscape with different races and characters brought to the forefront for each novel. I'm not quite ready to leave this world, so I'm excited to explore it further.

This book would work well for YA readers, but also for those who have transitioned out of the YA genre. The protagonist is old enough and mature enough that she doesn't feel like she could be a high school student, so that was a big plus for me.

I'll have to check out more by this author. I didn't want to put this one down. I'm hooked.

This is a book about forgiving others, seeking forgiveness from others, and forgiving yourself.

Some parts are affirming and uplifting. Other parts are painful and you'll want to skip through them.

This isn't a book to be read through all in one day. It's a book to sit with, to journal through, to struggle with and cry though. The Fourfold Path of Forgiveness, explored in this book, can be healing, but only if you walk the path. Thankfully, you'll discover you've most likely walked it before, several times, without really being aware. If we can walk that path of forgiveness with smaller things, we can walk through it with larger issues as well.

This isn't a book about forgiving and forgetting. It's not about forgetting or letting anyone off the hook for harm done to us or by us. It's about naming that hurt, telling our stories, granting forgiveness, and renewing or releasing the relationship.

"Forgiveness is not some airy-fairy thing. It has to do with the real world. Healing and reconciliation are not magic spells. They do not erase the reality of an injury. To forgive is not to pretend that what happened did not happen."

"Without forgiveness, we remain tethered to the person who harmed us. We are bound with chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped. Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness; that person will be our jailor. When we forgive, we take back control of our own fate and our feelings. We become our own liberators. We don’t forgive to help the other person. We don’t forgive for others. We forgive for ourselves. Forgiveness, in other words, is the best form of self-interest."

This is a great book to read with a partner or a group. It's also a great book for the upcoming season of Lent.

I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. For me it ranks right up there with[b:Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed|37570546|Maybe You Should Talk to Someone A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed|Lori Gottlieb|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547189796l/37570546._SY75_.jpg|59181770] but is actually more personable.

This book is hilariously vulnerable. You will learn all about Christie's childhood experiences, from parasites to run-ins with with disgruntled nuns. You'll come to know and care about her group mates in therapy and by the end you'll wish you could join her therapy group yourself.

You'll travel along with Christie as she learns to process her own emotions and the emotions of others. You'll celebrate small victories with her as if they were your own and you'll mourn her set-backs like a best friend.

Christie's is an ordinary journey, but it is no less amazing for that. This book only reinforces my thought that we should all be in therapy. If only such detailed therapy were affordable to those without Christie's level of career advancement and income.

This book is a conversation between the memories of many groups of people (represented each by one speaker) who were present at Kent State and in the town of Kent Ohio on May 4th, 1970. The conversation is phrased in such a way that it is meant to draw you, the reader, into the conversation, and spark questions. The speakers try to talk over one another, argue with one another, and reference events that you the reader are not familiar with, just like people would do if you walked into the middle of a conversation about an event you didn't attend.

It's an interesting writing strategy, and in my opinion, it pays off. The speakers describe events as plainly as possible, while other speakers call them out for forgetting black voices, or misremembering events, or romanticizing the four dead - instead of portraying them as fully human. This shows that we have tendencies to only recall our side of events, to live in our experiences and not be fully aware of everything happening around us, especially in times of chaos.

This book is not meant to be a definitive authority on every moment leading up to and covering the day of the massacre. It is meant to be an entry point into a conversation and a springboard for further research. This book is meant to put the reader into the conversation and encourage them to ask questions and research further.

The book closes with mentions of other events of violence, both government group against civilian group and government individual against civilian individual. Although some might argue that including people such as Sandra Brown in this conversation isn't appropriate or necessary, it provides a larger context for the conversation about abuse of power and individual rights.

I'm ready to research further.

Published 15 years before his penultimate novel, The Things They Carried, the book If I Die in a Combat Zone is the narratively linear account of O'Brien's journey through Vietnam. The novel covers the span of time between the draft notice, through service wandering through the villages of Vietnam after a largely unknown and unseen enemy, and back home to the United States. It's easy to tell this story was written before The Things They Carried. It focuses more clearly on the dilemma of the morality of war, or more specifically, the moral and spiritual consequences of fighting an unjust war.

But don't let that fool you. The story is told very lightly for such a compelling driving question. It lacks the mystically of the later novel, but I actually enjoyed the more linear narrative. I think this is a good companion to read alongside The Things They Carried.

I wish very much that I had discovered O'Brien's books before my grandfather passed away. O'Brien was a drafted enlisted man, a Private, so I know his experienced varied from my grandfather's a "lifer" officer who wasn't crammed through OCS in two months like O'Brien's commanding officers. Still, I feel like O'Brien's stories may be the closest I'll ever get to this period of my grandfather's life and to answering questions I will always have about his experiences, such as why he always carried a bullet in his leg instead of having it surgically removed. Everyone who survived that war carried it with them until the end, or carry it still.

I'm grateful for this book.