Reviews - The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

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12.4k reviews for:

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James McBride

3.9 AVERAGE

quinnweaver's review against another edition

4.5

dark funny 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

dark, funny, beautiful, interesting

lbmillercyc's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Loved this book. McBride is such a good writer and storyteller, and he can find good in just about everyone.

victoriasreads01's review against another edition

3.0

I liked the storyline/themes but not my pace - still would recommend though!

ratkowe's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 24%

Interesting book, just not the time to read it for me. It's slow pace and I have to pay close attention when reading.

keriannjo's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

beefmellington's review against another edition

2.0

2.5 ☆This book would have been a good first draft but having a huge ensemble story about small town petty infighting where no one character stands out means I felt almost nothing for any of them. The ones I felt for, like Chona, her death occurs "off screen" we don't spend tons of time with her husband after to see how it's affecting him. Then there's Dodo who's rescue also happens in the epilogue from the point of view of a distant observer. There's 400 pages and I couldn't describe to you what the H&E grocery store looks like, smells like, is decorated like. Did Chona play music? Did she drink her morning coffee with friends chatting? The people were usually described at white, black, or Jews with something about their eyes or hair or stature thrown in, and I had no real sense of what anyone looked like. There was no real depth to this book, no texture. There was nothing between the words for the reader to live in. We were *told* so much and *shown* very little - so I felt very little while reading this.

There were also issues with facts, the author would establish ages and then two pages later reestablish someone's age and then 2 chapters later they'd be the first age again. The characterizations would slip wildly. Because every character had their own chapter I'd start to get invested at the end of their backstory and then we wouldn't see them for anywhere from 50 to 100 pages while we were expected to get invested in 5 more characters during this time. It got really old after awhile and most of their quirky pasts had nothing to do with the plot. Sometimes they did, but not often.

The book started out with a mystery, and the payoff was like oh yeah it's just an asshole rapist who fell down a well drunk in the last 15 pages or so.

TLDR: The concept had potential but this was absolutely at the first draft stage.