The Sour Grape was a book based on how you can be angry all the time or be thankful and considerate. It taught me that my actions effect other people and I should be kind. The Sour Grape is a very, very fun book to read and it has cool illustrations.

Heartbreaking, heartwarming, funny, sad, charming, poignant—this book hits many emotions. Fredrik Backman knows people, and his characters are multi-dimensional, complex, and charming. The book is a story within a story, as the retelling of one remarkable summer for four teenage friends is shared during a train ride. Chance encounters, special connections, and the power of good friendship, especially during teenage years. Highly recommend.

This is a good one. My son can easily fill in the blank while reading this because it is repetitive.

Harlem, 2019. Oliver shares a crumbling love letter with his fiancé Ardelia. Natchez, 1865. Harrison has been discharged from the Union army and has returned to Mississippi to search for his love, Tizrah. Meanwhile, in Louisiana, newly free Tizrah yearns for Harrison. What follows is a story of star-crossed lovers, with a story that spans 150 years. The choices made by Tizrah and Harrison reverberate across following generations, keeping some people together and others apart. It's a love story, thoroughly researched historical fiction, and a bit of a mystery as well, as Oliver and Ardelia try to answer the questions raised by the letter. Beautifully written, raw and poignant, complicated and powerful. A very good book.

Kind of an odd story. Two sisters own a ballet studio that was passed down to them by their mother. When the studio is damaged, a contractor is brought in and delays and weird things happen. Not what I expected.

The comedy of garebare is hallarioss

Really good and cute short read! This is a teen romance story mixed in with mythology. The characters are realistic and relatable and the ending is satisfying, even if it wasn’t what I had hoped. Overall would definitely recommend!

I have mixed impressions of and feelings about this novel. I found the plot intriguing, and enjoyed Serafina's narrative voice in her alternating chapters, as compared to Sara's, which disappointingly tended to fall more often into cliché turns of phrase. I understand the need to set the characters' "voices" apart and distinguish the eras in which they are living, but wonder if this could have been done with a bit more finesse for Sara's chapters. Some plot revelations were telegraphed and therefore more predictable, while others felt more satisfyingly surprising. At times, the events and interactions themselves seemed to draw on stereotypes, though I appreciate that the author appears to have researched the book quite thoroughly. There were also some unexpectedly graphic passages in the book, so readers who are especially sensitive to intimate and/or violent imagery may wish to be aware of this before reading. Overall, though it would be missing a meaningful modern dimension, I think I might have preferred this as a purely historical fiction novel, set entirely in Serafina's time period. All that said, I would still be interested to read other novels by this same author, in the hopes that they are more of the quality of Serafina's chapters than Sara's.

This was rough to read. I was excited to read it but then I struggled. This character was so whiney it became annoying at times. He just went on and on and on. I feel it just went on for so long. I did a lot of skimming for a large portion of the book. I will say I enjoyed the ending, it was good, but my goodness it took a looooong time to get to that point - which it did not need to. One review said read the last 40 pages as it’s all you need to know, that’s true. I also had a friend reading (audio book) this at the same time (random) and she felt the same way! We enjoyed our misery together :) If you read it, enjoy and maybe you will have a different perspective.

A murder mystery from the murderers’ point of view! Bought this as a beach book but was pleasantly surprised. Very creative and enticing storyline that kept me interested as someone who’s not much of a bookworm.