emilyreadthatbook's reviews
810 reviews

This book takes a minute. I am pretty sure I didn’t really like the main characters for the first part of this book. LaRaynn seemed cold and closed off and Deacon came off as manipulative and overly harsh. While that wasn’t completely true, it also wasn’t completely wrong. What was missing with that first impression was context. The rest of the book was spent filling in gaps in each characters histories with their families and with each other. Once you understood, you understood. As the walls of the house they were renovating in the story, so did the walls they had each erected between each other, and that was truly enjoyable. 

Read this if you like stories of imperfect people trying regardless of the failures of their families and life trying to smack them down. Read this if you like stories about small towns and second chances, along with the trials and tribulations of home renovations.

Rebecca Woolf has the remarkable ability to tackle hard topics using truth and candor. Instead of this book feeling heavy, it feels like permission. Permission to speak the truths of how you really feel in the light of a difficult situation. Permission to acknowledge everything is not always hunky-dory. Permission to talk about how a relationship was not super functional, even after one of the people has died. 

As a culture, we tiptoe around talk of death, dying, and the dead. We only remember the positives and don’t allow for the recognition of the imperfections of the dead. Woolf does not avoid these areas of discussion. She highlights the dysfunction of the relationship and the responsibility of both parties. While this is her story, she doesn’t shy away from her truth, including her infidelity.

This story is not just the death and dying of a man, but also a woman coming back to herself and her truth.  

An interesting concept, though it took a while to get there. This is not the longest book but the pacing dragged in places. You have to love female rage though. 

Both Dania and Noor are perfect examples of not taking the beating lying down. Both are strong and intelligent women. Noor is a herbalist, trained to properly mix special seeds that give the person who intakes them certain magics, if not uncertain death. Dania is the daughter of a blacksmith and a sword fighter in her own right, having been trained by her father all her life. Through a series of betrayals and missteps, both women in up in prison, that is until they both break free. Hungry for revenge, they plot to strike down those who did them wrong.

The part that was hardest for me was the jumping back and forth between the past and present to tell the story. Other books use this tactic, but in this one, it felt a little awkward. I appreciated that gender never seemed to be roadblock for the female characters. We saw women in all different roles without it being commented on. 

I would have loved to learn more about Maz’s story. It’s felt like the bits we were given provided an incomplete picture and left some gaps. For example, why did the emperor take Maz and his sister in to raise as his own? 

Altogether, I appreciated this story and the different backdrop it took place in. This was not the typical fairytale, and at the end of the day, none of the women needed a man to rush in to rescue them. This is a story about strong independent women, friendship, and revenge.