rachel_athens's reviews
954 reviews

All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

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challenging dark emotional funny sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow's protagonist Sunday Forrester in All the Little Bird-Hearts is a mother, a gardener, a daughter-in-law, and an ex-wife whose world is ordered in specific ways that make sense to her alone. That is until new neighbor Vita moves in and delights in Sunday's neurodiversity such as only drinking liquids with bubbles and eating white foods on certain days. Sunday's friendship with Vita causes great delight that short summer but also a wedge in Sunday's relationship with her daughter. This book aches with longing, miscommunication, and the desire to be understood. A fascinating read.
Holiday Country by İnci Atrek

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

While Ada has spent every summer in Turkey with her mother and grandmother, part of her longs to truly belong. Inci Atrek's Holiday Country explores Ada's relationship with Turkey, her mother, and any loyalty she feels for both. An unexpected crush on an older man has the potential to up-end Ada's life, but instead might just usher her into adulthood with an entirely different perspective of her mother.
Come & Get It by Kiley Reid

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challenging dark emotional funny tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

One of Kiley Reid's talents is creating extremely nuanced characters. By the end of Come & Get It, I felt like I could recognize Agatha and Mille's voices from across a crowded room, I knew them so well. A study of female relationships mostly set at the University of Arkansas in 2017, Reid's prose dissects each power imbalance carefully, and every absolutely poor choice is made wholeheartedly. The heart wants what it wants. Come & Get It is an absolute pleasure and Reid nails the southern dialect. Five of five stars!
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

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dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Read Big Swiss before HBO and A24 adapt it to the screen. Jen Beagin’s book is filled with crushes, sex, grief, inappropriate behavior, miniature donkeys, and honeybees. I loved it. Not for the faint of heart, this is definitely fun if you’re into dark humor and a touch of horror. 
Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

 Stephanie Land's second memoir is riveting. Class honestly chronicles the end of Land's undergraduate degree studies. While you might expect the constant financial struggles, food insecurities, and single-parenting burdens to be shared with clarity, this book is also very sex positive as Land doesn't apologize for having a sex drive and chooses to have her second child while unpartnered. This book puts a human face to some of America's most pervasive problems (the high cost of higher education, food, housing) and is an empowering read. 
It Happened One Christmas by Chantel Guertin

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funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

3.0

Chantel Guertin's It Happened One Christmas is a peppermint mocha with extra whipped cream type of drink. While mostly predictable, there were enough plot twists that I just had to keep reading. This is the perfect rom-com holiday vacation book.
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Morgan Talty's debut novel Fire Exit has an unmistakable pace that leaves you as unsettled as the main character, Charles Lamosway. This story about grief and mental illness is woven around struggles to understand family, both biological and nurtured. Brilliantly written, Fire Exit bears witness to what a birthright and culture mean when you were denied what felt like home.
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Something, Someday by Amanda Gorman

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

5.0

Amanda Gorman and Christian Robinson's Something, Someday is a beautiful and sweet love letter on the ability to change the world and exist in our sometimes terrible world with hope. Read this to normalize hard things and give yourself the chance to remember you can make a difference. 
DallerGut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee

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adventurous funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Take a break from your everyday life and browse dreams for sale at The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Mi-ye Lee translated by Sandy Joosun Lee. Penny is a new hire and is learning how to help the customers select the perfect dreams. Dallergut's philosophy is to only offer dreams that enhance a customer's reality and Penny delights in learning the craft. This book is a healing and mysterious escape.
The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Parts of Annabelle Tometich's story of growing up in Fort Myers, FL, the daughter of a Filipino mom and white dad, are so unbelievable they must be true. Written by a veteran journalist and food critic and writer, The Mango Tree is incredibly entertaining and compellingly readable. The book begins with Tometich receiving a collect call from an inmate at the county jail who is, of course, her mother. From there the book goes back to tell the story of Tometich's childhood and we learn about the undying family loyalty of her mother, her father's mental health struggles, and the very real times when Tometich not only had to parent herself but her siblings. This family saga is told with unflinching candor. Bravo!