chichio's reviews
162 reviews

Elizabeth's writing is actually spectacular, so spectacular that I think I might stop being an asshole and finally bother with a YA novel in order to read the rest of her work. I'm realising that I'm just such a sucker for a multi-generational family saga, and this book gave me everything that I want to enjoy from this particular story-type. I loved the interplay between all the generations of women and the added magical realism element was such an interesting layer to use to not only show how they interact with each other, how they are similar, and also show how their differences set them down different paths in their lives. I'm really impressed by how different each character voice is, especially since this book gives us SEVERAL perspectives. Seriously, it was all so impressive to me. 

I did bristle a little bit where Matilda and Ona's storylines were concerned given the topic of bearing children but even though I didn't agree wholly with the importance both women attached to the ability of having kids and their own self-actualisation, I would be lying if I said the author didn't do great work in explaining WHY both women attached such importance to children. Matilda with her traditional upbringing; Ona coming to terms the fact that despite her uncanny control of her vagina, she can do nothing to bring about child-bearing.

Didn’t really care too much about the characters, but the atmosphere of this book? The atmosphere in this book was amazing; there were times where I genuinely had to pause my reading because I was starting to get very uncomfortable. I’ll always enjoy gothic books, where the author takes age old gothic tropes and reuses them to their own benefit. The commentary provided about colonialism, racism, memory and the tireless strive for legacy was devastating yet brilliant. It speaks of trauma that can be passed down between generations and how this trauma may not only be stored in the body, but also stored in the very infrastructure of the family home. Despite the intensity of the themes explored, this was a fun and quick read for me.

Loved the nods at The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman! 

When I got past the corny jokes and attempts at humour, this book opened itself up to be a really good time and that’s almost entirely because of how interesting Nora is to me. I think she’s such a complex yet well rounded look into the way people-pleasing can manifest; she preemptively sacrifices herself for people without them asking, shrinking herself (emotionally, but also in other ways) in the process, causing the people she shrinks herself for to be upset that she’s made herself so small. We see that mostly in her relationship with Libby, which I really enjoyed exploring.

When Libby said that Nora should stop trying to be her DAD? Great. Literally so fucking good. I’ve never seen the “over-bearing older sister” thing get looked at from the lens of the Mum making the daughter take on a PARTNER role. That was interesting.

Charlie was great, too. Was he a little too perfect too quickly? Probably… especially because this is apparently meant to be “rivals to lovers,” but tbh tropes mean very little to me so I won’t hold that against this book. I really do enjoy how this book is mostly about someone loving you where you’re at (physically, emotionally) as opposed to love being this mystical, magical transformer. 

Oh, I had a lot of fun with this. I’ve been so jaded where modern, post-2010 contemporary romances are concerned so I picked this up, wanting to research how the authors of the past got down to business and I’m not at all disappointed. This novel had a touch of magical realism that I wasn’t expecting but I found delightful; Daisy reads like a Disney princess but not in a way that I found annoying at all. The premise is absurd but the author commits to the bit so much that I found myself wilfully believing it, charmed by it from page 1 right until the end. 

The author doesn’t shy away from the genuine difficulty humans have with communicating with each other and instead of it just being sprinkled in as a trope at the 70% mark, it’s genuinely explored as an overarching theme throughout the whole book. Miscommunication between workers and bosses. Miscommunication between parents and children. Miscommunication between lovers—past tense and present. Hell, there was even miscommunication between animals and humans. No one in this book is a perfect communicator and, as result, that leads to harm and setbacks and large mistakes that gave the book tension. I enjoyed the sheer humanity of that messiness. This book isn’t a how-to on having a perfect relationship, instead it’s a book about a relationship burdened by messy human nature. A lot of people wouldn’t like that; according to some reviews, a lot of people don’t. I loved it because it made the story feel so real and not like the cookie cutter shit we see so often in romance novels nowadays. The author has messy ass characters and spends the time sorting through this mess ON THE PAGE (rather than through lazy time-skips or scene jumps or one line apologies that are meant to mend all). 

I can’t give this a five because

that whole pregnancy moment left a genuinely bad taste in my mouth. I felt that Alex was pretty fucking clear as to why he didn’t want children and not only did Daisy bulldoze over that, but it felt like the author did the same thing. Saying you don’t want children with someone isn’t a consequence of not loving them. Alex not wanting children had absolutely nothing to do with Daisy, and I wasn’t too big of a fan how that was flattened into him just “not accepting that he loved her at the moment.” I’m guessing that that might just be a product of the time this was written but, still, it knocked off a pretty big star for me.

Writing style really isn’t working for me, I fear. 

This book genuinely reads like television and, as someone trying to pry themselves out of a reading slump, this was exactly what the doctor ordered. The writing was very easy to follow, very easy to see in my mind’s eyes. Coco Melores crafts characters that seamlessly move between being understated to being blown-up caricatures of the archetypes that you would find if you ever caught yourself partying with New York City’s creative elites. 

I actually really enjoyed how Melores used Cleo and Frank’s whirlwind relationship to create a ripple effect on all the people in their lives; I enjoy ensemble casts with lives that brush up against one another, that overlap, for better or for worse.

Still, I couldn’t help but want more of Cleo and Frank. Frank, in particular. His ending is far too neat and convenient for me. We don’t see him go through the thick of his recovery, instead we just hear about it from Eleanor (a character I never felt any real interest for… she’s very “not like other girls” and that was a yawn fest when put up against all the other points of view). He’s a drunk, has been a drunk for decades and then suddenly he’s in AA meetings, only ordering sparkling water and he’s in love… again? Sure thing, man. That makes rating this book a little difficult for me because the ensemble cast is what I had fun with all while feeling like the changing perspectives took away from the titular characters. You can’t give us so much detail about the characters’ mess but not let us see the extensive work they need to put in in order to clean it all up.