jaduhluhdabooks's reviews
299 reviews

lol - no. So many red flags, I gotta stop reading these ahaha

Love me a hazelwood noveelllA ALSO. BESTIES TO LOVERS. I LIVE AND I BREATHHEEE. 

All these stars are for the love of my life, Tyler. Forever McCall 💜💜

How cute and fun and sweet. The ending made me cry. Eli - YOU KING. 

I just don’t think dark romance is for me, but if all the ones I’ve dabbled in this one was fairly adapted and I appreciated that the characters had some depth. It was wild and messy and like super problematic but what did I expect. I actually laughed out loud at some parts and found both MMC and FMC hilarious, but their relationship dynamic felt rushed and I saw them more as besties than lovers. Anyways. I hate impromptu marriage proposals at the end of books like - we can make the assumption it doesn’t need to be written in the epilogue lollllll 


Anyways. 

What’s beautiful book and one that will stay with me. Reading Jude’s words and her story about fleeing Syria, a land and country she loved so deeply, to her uncle in America with her mom was such an honor. 

Refugees have some of the most powerful and harrowing stories and I always feel so honored to know them. While Jude’s was fiction, Jasmine’s was not and I was grateful to read her story through Jude’s eyes and voice. I think there’s so much power in bravery and sometimes the bravest things we can do, are survive and keep going. 

I think this is a powerful book, with necessary lessons for people in other countries, especially the western world, to listen intently to. To create belonging for all people should be a civic duty and it’s a value I am adding to my definition and responsibility of civility. I am continuing to steward my voice as I grow and I hope that it can one day be as bold and brave and powerful as Jude’s. 

I think I’m going to contemplate this one for a long time. It was such a heavy book. Richly layered and complex in the ways character and history tends to be when you humanize all participants in its making. The few thoughts I’m sitting with in these hours post completion, is that history matters and whose voices cultivate that narrative of history is of the upmost importance. 

Women are often sideline in the larger conversations of historical events that drastically shifts philosophy and way of life for the world. But usually at the crux and turning points of many of these historical events, women have helped lay and solidify the foundations. Vianne and Isabelle are two sisters in pre and post war France in the 1940s, experiencing what is collectively known around the world as one of histories most important lessons to learn from. 

Following these two sisters, most estranged for the entirety of the war and their perspectives on French nationalism and resiliency, makes for such an interesting dynamic and conversations about peace. For Isabelle, peace would only come when Fran’s had reclaimed occupation and freedom from Germany; but for Vianne, peace solely rested with the survival of her children. Watching their characters develop over the years they spent in France during WWII, made for a significant evaluation of self as a reader. I spent so much time placing myself in their shoes, wondering about my community and what the extension of my own gifts and connections could present to uplift and stabilize what was deliberately being broken.

I so badly want to think I would be a ferociously brave human, working with resistances to endure the freedom of my nation, but at the end of the day, I am human and I am a part of a whole and maybe my ferocious bravery isn’t there, but needed elsewhere. It’s a powerfully written novel with dark and real themes about humanity. 

The best and the worst versions of ourselves. What we lean toward in times of survival and how we grow the small increments of power given to us, for the good of others or the gain of self. 

I usually don’t enjoy deeply entrenched books about war, but Kristin does a fabulous job of detailing the war, adding nuance to the story, and elevating the voices of women and children so often left out of the narrative in significant and empowering ways. I appreciate her bravery and humility in writing this story well and presenting it readers with the care of a wounding history for Jewish people and a necessary reflection for all. 

Haley James Scott, damn. What a story and as someone who is no longer involved in the church in these ways, how harrowing a read this was to listen to. I applaud you for your vulnerability and the weight of those years shared with readers. It’s heavy to just lay all of your spiritual and religious traumas on display for everyone.

It was such a triggering listen for so many different reasons. I have often felt as if the church misses the mark on so many things and this story just makes me a skeptic all the more. 

The exposure and exploitive nature of church leaders has always rubbed me the wrong way and left me wondering why we do church THIS way in the Western world? 

While I was never knee deep in a cultish environment and relationship, church abuse I know well and I felt for Joy so much. I honestly don’t even know how you could do a show so well for that many years and be shouldering so much behind the scenes. 

As always, memoirs humanize characters I come to love and make sense of the reality of humanity in all people. It was a heavy listen, but one I feel so connected to. Thank you Joy. 

Ugh. What a re read. I resonated so deeply with Elsie the first time around and this time is also no different. I found myself tearing up at the internal conversations one has with themselves when the world they know around them is cruel and deceptive…so they best the world to it by being just as deceitful.

Elsie is seeking so much more than the approval of people, she’s seeking warmth and want. To be needed, yes. But to be chosen, is the core of her actions and desires. I cannot explain how Ali wrote such a layered and beautiful character, but I can applaud her for the accuracy—though grueling in detail— and the journey of Elsie’s growth. 

Jack, Cece, Greg, and George played such a significant role is support Elsie in her journey back to herself, or maybe not even back, just to herself. I can’t relate to every scenario Elsie found herself in, from family to academic politics, it was so close to home and she is held to closely to my heart. 

Ugh, it makes this such a hard and wonderful re read and a Hazelwood and Hazelverse book that I don’t ever think I will find more myself in…

Brava as always Ms. Hazelwood, brava.