Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Yerba Buena: A Novel by Nina LaCour

103 reviews

stephyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Sexual content, Grief, Drug abuse, Addiction, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Death of parent

smleeth93's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Alcohol, Child death, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault

littki's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Grief, and Rape

Moderate: Cancer, Addiction, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Alcohol, Death, Toxic relationship, and Terminal illness

Minor: Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Blood, Car accident, Drug use, and Injury/Injury detail

sestout's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual content, Grief, Death, Rape, Child death, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Pedophilia, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Murder, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Drug use, Sexual content, Alcoholism, Grief, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

skan's review against another edition

emotional reflective 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

3.5

The beginning of this book is very slow and it took a while to get used to LaCour's descriptive writing style. Honestly, I nearly DNFed at that point, but it does get better. I preferred one of the MCs over the other (especially at the beginning), but the narration split between the two felt very uneven, which also contributed to my dislike. That said, the book got much better once the two characters got together. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Child death

Moderate: Grief, Drug abuse, and Sexual content

Minor: Drug use and Murder

greatestheights's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

3.75

This was so lovely in many ways, and Nina LaCour is as skilled a writer as always, but something felt a little lacking here. There were elements of the story I needed more of for everything to fully resonate and come together for me — but the characters were beautifully rendered, and I want nothing but good things for them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Grief, Sexual assault, Death, Addiction, and Infidelity

Moderate: Death of parent

cheye13's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.0

Something about this read a little young to me. Maybe it was because we started with one of the characters at 14, maybe because we don't get the full "reveal" of Sara's home life until so late, I'm not quite sure.

And it's not strictly a romance, so it makes sense the story focused more on other elements of both women's journeys, but I didn't feel a connection between them at all. It read as though they were the only queer women in the vicinity (i.e. in the book), so they may as well date.

It was a decent story, and very well written, but I didn't find that it offered anything exceptionally unique.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, and Infidelity

Moderate: Death of parent, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Addiction, and Child death

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Cancer, and Pedophilia

two underage characters perform sex acts for money mostly off-page; an underage girl seriously considers sex work for a time

booksandbesitos's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-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

4.25

Nina Lacour is my favorite author and I had really high expectations for this. I loved the storytelling and the dual points of view. It took me a long time to get through it because the content is pretty heavy, especially for Sarah’s story. The ending was a little surprising, not bad just not what I was expecting. But I think that in this book it’s more  closure than endings. Overall I really liked it, I think I’ll definitely reread it in one go now that I got through it the first time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Addiction, Abandonment, Alcohol, Drug use, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Sexual content

Moderate: Blood

paulaortuno's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Addiction, Drug use, Drug abuse, and Grief