Reviews

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

gamz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious 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

5.0

An extraordinary story so beautifully written and narrated. I fell in love with the characters and wanted to protect Dodo with my whole soul. This book deserves a hundred stars. It made me cry several times. The copy I read was a library loan, but I have just purchased my own copy. It’s a keeper. 

cheryl_gramma's review against another edition

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

4.75

alicia_simons's review against another edition

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

This was a very confusing read. The majority of the time I felt lost in the plot because the story didn’t feel cohesive as you jumped from character to character. However I did enjoy some parts and even teared up a couple of times. 

sissylala's review against another edition

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challenging emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

zekereadseverything's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

katemc's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A lot of four stars+ recently! In very different genres and for different reasons, lol.

I really, really liked the prose in this and the sort of sweeping nature of the story at large. A large cast of characters, a fleshed out town and community, and a story of injustice pulling us along. I was really immersed whenever I was reading it and tore through it pretty quickly and with very little effort! 

It felt like it petered out just a bit near the end and I did have to go back and reread the prologue once it ended to remember how the aftermath was teased for us. I also felt like there were a few paragraphs where the author waxed poetic a bit about societal change/the future that felt a bit unnecessarily philosophical. But those were small things! I was emotionally wrapped up in this story and really recommend it!

dogoodwithbooks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad 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

This book was something else. While I don’t really read a whole lot of historical fiction and that I thought the pacing at first was pretty slow, I was captivated by McBride’s storytelling of the residents in Chicken Hill. Capturing the various points of intersectionality in terms of race, social class, and disability (just to name a few), McBride’s stories of the African American and Jewish residents who live in Pottstown’s Chicken Hill is both heartbreaking yet hopeful.
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theresa_mysteries_and_mayhem's review against another edition

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5.0

It took me a minute to get into The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. But true to my reading tendencies, as soon as I cozied up to the characters, I was fully invested in their stories. And so many stories were intertwined in this book.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store takes us back to the early 1900s in Pottstown, PA, a segregated town where hatred is openly displayed and accepted. The story focuses on Jewish and Black families who live on Chicken Hill. The grocery store is run by a Jewish woman who is far ahead of her time in her way of acceptance of all and writing scathing letters to the editor about the town's prejudiced tendencies.

I'm so happy I decided to pick up this book. Its characters and their stories will live in my head and heart for quite some time. I just wish I could say that as a country we've learned and grown since the time this story took place. We may have taken a few staggering steps sideways since then.

joymmjackson's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

ceplutnicki's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
Hated at first. So depressing.  Enjoyed character development.