Jacqueline

Beautifully written and performed

Reviewed: 10-17-24

Reading this book felt like being transported to another world and discovering that the other world was inside me. It is poetic, lyrical, and painfully/beautifully human.

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Loved the pacing and the poetics

Reviewed: 05-28-24

The description packed into each sentence is pitch perfect. The cadence of each of the women’s voices and the materials they reference so superbly paint a picture of who they are. The writing is powerful and poetic. The author voices, her recognizably complex and beautiful characters as exquisitely, and she waits them.

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Beautiful, enthralling, and satisfying

Reviewed: 07-21-23

I read Part of Your World after Yours Truly and loved them both. They made me think of the new beginning the long messy middle of life can bring when time and circumstances allow you to assess whether the life you’re living is the one you inherited or the one you chose. I also felt the affirming comfort of spending time with kind, grounded, self-aware, self-reflexive, male love interests who are tender and good humans.

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Beautiful, warm, cozy, and magical

Reviewed: 06-07-23

This is a lovely story about family, community, and being brave enough to live one’s fullest life

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Perfection

Reviewed: 02-04-23

This is such a round, nuanced, and well told Caribbean diaspora story that centers women’s experiences and ways of knowing. It is about resilience (personal, cultural, and familial) and tradition (sedimented and new). And, it is about the power of women’s labor, power, self-determination, and bonds if kinship. I couldn’t put it down once I started it, and I felt thoroughly satisfied when I finished.

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A stunning powerhouse

Reviewed: 11-15-22

This was such a fun, powerful, and exhilarating read. I loved it as much as I did Legendborn and couldn’t put it down. Bree, Sel, Nick; their allies, ancestors, promises, oaths,
hopes, loves, and demons do not disappoint. Deonn is brilliant at weaving multiple systems of power together— magical and real—colonial and decolonial. It’s layered. textured, and satisfying. I can’t wait for Book 3!

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Dazzling

Reviewed: 06-26-22

Emezi has craft a bold, fresh story masterfully told— raw, human, messy, and satisfyingly beautiful. Turpin never disappoints in her talent at performing it.

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1 person found this helpful

Beautiful

Reviewed: 06-21-22

What a great love note to Detroit, to Black culture, and to the importance of loving yourself first.

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2 people found this helpful

Loved the philosophies of healing

Reviewed: 06-05-22

I expected this to feel like a bridge to the final book in the series. That is to say, my expectations of it were tempered. I was surprised to find that this is one of my favorite books in the series because of its focus on healing and the philosophy of healing/therapy/regaining wholeness it amplifies. Although there is plenty of satisfying suspense, and the type of evocative action we have come to expect, this is a more introspective node of the journey. As with the other books in the series, it is well plotted and the story is well told. I enjoyed the witnessing the development of the characters, and I am excited to see the old and new woven into the final book.

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Important, insightful and well written

Reviewed: 05-11-22

This is a well told, painful, and beautiful story. Some parts are whimsical and steamy, and others are shattering and perspective-challenging.I loved going on this journey with the protagonist and witnessing her understanding of love and sacrifice deepen even as my heart broke for and with her along the way. The main characters are satisfyingly round and flawed. I resonated with and appreciated their complexity, wrestling to assert and understand their own boundaries, and their struggles to express agape as well as self love.

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