A review by megelizabeth
This Side of Home by Renée Watson

reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

This unfortunately ended up being a bit of a 'meh' read for me. I liked our main character, Maya, well enough, and the book does deal with some interesting and important topics and I liked some of the overall messages. However, I didn't find the plot to be very cohesive and I found myself constantly feeling as if something was 'missing', and the character study/coming-of-age elements weren't prominent enough, for me, to make up for this lack of coherent plot. I came away feeling as if I'd had a decent enough reading experience (and luckily the short chapters and simple writing style made it a fairly quick and easy read, despite some of the subject matter), but as if I just wasn't quite sure what the point was supposed to have been. I also usually love books that explore relationships between sisters, and yet that element didn't really do much for me here either.

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