lunabean's reviews
218 reviews

Just…. Brilliant.

The book spans 8 generations, starting with 2 half sisters who never knew each other. We follow generation after generation through history as the book explores the many layers and facets of systemic oppression and colonisation. Generations of hardship and suffering that bring us to the lives of African Americans today. EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK.

The chapters alternate between first person narratives of Nella and Eliza (apothecary) in 1791 and present day Caroline.

Nella runs a secret apothecary where she helps women poison men who have betrayed them. Caroline in the present day finds a vial from 200 years ago and seeks to unravel the mystery of the apothecary killer.

The book was an easy read and has a very interesting plot. A page-turner, I was not once bored. However, the author tends to over-elaborate, describing every single action the character takes. Like “keying in the passcode on my phone” and “swiping up to kill the app”. At times, the descriptions help build realistic images and settings for the book, but at other times they come off mechanical. Another downside was the impractical/absurd reasonings given by the author for Caroline’s actions. She first finds the vial by chance, then does little to no research (Gaynor doing most of the literary search), then finds an abandoned door by chance again, and then puts so much weight to her “illegal act of trespassing”. After which she practically sees herself as a rebel and historian.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy the book, and it was a lot of fun reading about the apothecary and getting to know Nella and Eliza.

The book follows the protagonist Nuri, and his wife Afra, as they travel from Syria, to Turkey, to Greece, to Spain, to the UK. We see the impact of war and unrest on the lives of refugees and the struggles they face to find peace. There are the themes of love and hope amidst loss, grief, war, and all the ugliness of the world. We should all be reminded of how good the peace we have is, and that we are not more deserving of peace than others who have lost their homes. Phenomenal, pensive read.

I look like I’m giving books 5 stars left and right but this book is TRULY wonderful. It’s fictitious but the author says she tried to keep things as historically accurate as possible.

The book explores the lives of William Shakespeare’s family. Before starting, I thought the book would be boring and hard to understand because it was set in the 1500s. But I was pleasantly proven wrong! The story was heartwarming and spoke heavily on the theme of family and love. Shakespeare’s Hamlet was said to be have been inspired by the death of his son Hamnet. This book gives this speculation breath and life as we read a story about Shakespeare’s family. I particularly had a fondness for Judith, Hamnet’s twin sister. She was so dear… Anyway, I loved the book, I loved the imagery, the pensive, ruminative, heart-tugging kind of prose used to describe grief and love. 5 STARS.

Like a less well-written version of Yaa Gyasi or Abi Daré books. The story follows innocent Jivan, a girl accused of being a terrorist, Lovely, a hijra who dreams of being a famous actress, and PT Sir, a man who wants more for himself in life and finds himself in a corrupt political party. The book just left me feeling angry and hopeless. No joy in it at all. Maybe that’s the point, to highlight the injustices (understatement) of society in India. But I personally didn’t enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked.

What did I just read?

Oh my goodness this ginormous wonder of a book! The story was long and detailed and magic altogether. It follows Addie LaRue, who makes a deal with an evil god - asking for freedom yet getting a warped, manipulated, cruel version in return.

It starts off in year 1700 in a small town, Addie with a marriage arranged for her and expectations demanded of her. She does not want these things, wants instead to see the world beyond the town, wants to live life fully and be free. As she pleads the gods for freedom, an evil god answers and makes a deal with her. He gives her freedom where she is tied to NO ONE, makes her immortal, forgettable, unable to say her name, leave any mark. People forget her the moment they leave the room. As a result she cannot have a home, a family, friends, or anything to call hers. Chapters alternate between the early years of her deal, filled with pain and suffering, and the present year 2014 where she has found her own way of life after 300 years of pacing her cage and finding gaps in the bars.

One day, she meets Henry, a man who had also made his own deal with the evil god. And he remembers. Their stories entangle and fit and we see what it means to have time, be loved, be remembered, and to love.

Some parts of the book explores themes that were a little hard for me to understand, but it was a very enjoyable, magical, pensive read nonetheless. Like knowing how great and vast the sky is yet being unable to fully grasp the depths of it. What a gift to literature this story is…

Poignant and spiritual, I can’t believe an entire book was written about a man and an elderly woman’s journey making Dorayaki and sweet bean paste together. A simple storyline yet it held so much soul! I also think it painted Japanese elements really perfectly. Watts also did a fantastic job translating the book to English. The prose flowed effortlessly and reading was very smooth and enjoyable.

A relatively short read that has a whole lot of heart and packs a real good punch. Alternating between timelines, the book follows 3 generations in a family: Sabe and Po’boy and CathyMarie as parents and grandparents, Iris and Aubrey as teen parents, and their child, Melody. The book might be short, but man… the content is so whole and elaborate and tugs so strongly on heart strings. The decisions we make when we’re young, we take them with us as time flies and flies and boy does time fly. What a wonderful read.

After Jamison left, I really did think I was going to die standing. No one had taught me this—how to get out of bed and keep moving. And for the few days afterward, each time I tried to, I stumbled, dizziness coming for me like a wave. The smell of her still so much a part of me that it hurt to inhale. No one had taught me how to eat. How to swallow. So I lay there—day moving into night into day, while in the halls, I could hear students doing what they needed to do.

Slowly, Jamison’s scent became my own funk. When I finally climbed out of bed, it wasn’t so much to live. It was to wash and eat, to call home and hear a voice. To hear someone on the other end of that line who loved me. ////

So a week later, when I saw him walking with his arm around a pretty Puerto Rican girl, I crept upstairs to my room, faked the flu, and stayed in bed for days and days. Other boys followed and I learned quickly not to love them, to love the feeling of them inside me, the taste of their mouths, the way they held me. But nothing more.

Very odd book, exhibits depression in an extreme, nihilistic way. Kind of absurd really.