celiarl's reviews
355 reviews

Loved the first 60%. Great commentary on reciprocity and using the gifts of earth wisely/paying the earth back for what we take. The ending started to drag for me— I don’t know if this was due to the pieces of nature Kimmerer focused on, or maybe the theme began to get redundant? I don’t know. But a wonderful, unique read that I am grateful to have spent time with!

This book was utterly addictive. The writing was unputdownable from the get-go, no doubt attributable to the author's experience as a playwrite. I loved being in our narrator's head-- she is so unhinged, yet we are offered a relatively relatable/understandable excuse for each "mistake" she makes: isn't this just the truth of the human experience?

This novel did a wonderful job of exploring tough topics such as motherhood, marriage, and identity throughout aging in a unique and captivating way... particularly for someone who is experiencing none of this currently.

I am still wrapping my head around the ending. While I see how Jonas wanted a way to pull our MC and her husband John back together at the end, and see how this was also a way of making them run into the wall of their aging and need to come to terms with it, I do think it was a bit drastic. It felt a bit rushed and as if Jones was grasping at straws. On the other hand, citing Jonas' experiencing with writing plays, I see why an ending so drastic that creates such a neat tie on the knot would come to mind.

It was cute and rompy, just what I wanted. Nothing particularly striking/stood out to me… two very average characters, whom we know very little about, fall in love in a painfully unrealistic way (“looking for treasure” at the Christmas tree farm?). Interjections of pop culture references were kept to a minimum, but still present which was a bummer. Spice was cringey and felt out of place :( 
Liked the Christmas-y vibe and the Gilmore girl-type small town. Feel like it would’ve been better if I were more familiar with the characters from previous books.