Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - How to Excavate a Heart

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

30 reviews

thebookpaiges's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.5

I loved how wintry this book was. I also thought that Shani being a dead fish nerd was a wonderful choice and reading about her experience in the lab was great. Seeing Shani and May explore their DC setting was lots of fun, too!!

Unfortunately I didn’t click with the romance enough. I didn’t like that Shani and May were awkward around each other for the entirety of the book as it was hard to grasp their emotional connection and also made the fact that they loved each other within four weeks unbelievable. As the romance is the main part of this book, this a major sticking point with me.

As a final note,

I didn’t love that the climax of the book was an elderly person having a medical emergency, essentially a plot point engineered to get the MCs in the vicinity of one another again

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siobhanward's review against another edition

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lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.5

This was fun and cute - definitely felt a lot like YA a lot of the time as Shanni could be self-centred and immature. However, she also was born in this millennium so she's young enough I won't hold it against her. I loved Raphael and Beatrice, although I wish we had learned more about Shanni's great grandmother, or honestly any of her family in general.

The romance plot was cute - it was very surface-level, but also I get it. This was definitely a book where a lot of the secondary characters were more interesting than the protagonists, so I wish we'd seen more of them, but it was still a fun read.

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sapphic_swiftie's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted 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? Yes

4.5

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lilou0922's review against another edition

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funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.5

Overall not a bad book. It is what it says it is, funny, but not very quotable. I appreciate the niche interests of the main characters but in the last third, it got slightly annoying, especially Shani

when she threw fossils away

.

I absolutely love the doggy he's absolutely adorable and amazing. Beatrice and the other two roommates are fun but forgettable. It has a good plot in the beginning then it quickly turns into just a romance where the main character ditches her friends and family for love.

She even fails at the one thing she promised she'd do at the start of the book.

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emsim's review against another edition

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medium-paced

3.0

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writerkit's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing 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? It's complicated

4.5

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blewballoon's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted 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? Yes

3.5

A sweet love story with a lot of fun side characters. Mandira was excellent and I'd love a book from her perspective. This is aimed to a younger audience than myself. The main character is young and naive, but she does mature about important things as the story goes on.

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penandpages's review against another edition

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lighthearted

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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shelvesofivy's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was a perfect, fun, holiday rom-com and the corgi was just a cherry on top ♡ But we had a really sweet, low-ish stakes romance with ✨️growth and communication✨️ (not just between the two MCs, but also with friends and family) and I'm always here for that!
There were definitely some times where I wish it was paced differently, but I think that it still worked because pacing in a new relationship was such an important thing for our main characters to learn. Even though this is YA, it's for the older side of YA; the main characters are college freshmen and there's discussions of sex and wanting sex, etc. (never explicitly, but illuded to). Speaking of! I very much appreciate the inclusion of content warnings for SA at the very beginning of the novel, and how the topic was talked about – and that we get to see the main characters checking in with each other's comfort levels.
Overall, I really enjoyed this and think it was a great way to kick off the season!

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