Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

This was a bit of a struggle to get through at times, I’m gonna be honest. There are so many characters that it was hard to keep up with what part they played in the plot of the book. And even the plot of the book, is a little hard to distinguish in the beginning. If this is marketed as a murder mystery book, that’s false. There’s not much mystery around it, honestly, because you know dang well what happens to a particularly important character, as well as how and who was responsible for that to happen, very quickly. This can be described as a book about a multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-generational community that works together to figure out how to make their community better for everyone, as well as banding together to provide for one of their own. It was good in some places, downright dragging in others, and it picked up around the 60-70% mark, which is really frustrating. Is it going to be a memorable book for me? No, probably not.

Content Warnings

nukie19's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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

3.25

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zoea08's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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jt793's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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katosta8815's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was not my favorite. The writing was overly descriptive and made way too much fluff. The chapters did not flow together well, and each scene change felt very abrupt. There were way too many characters to keep track of, and not enough time given to the MCs. New characters were being introduced even in the last few chapters, which was obnoxious.

All of the deaths were underwhelming and written in a confusing way — two of them were beloved characters, and I didn’t even feel sad when they died because I simply didn’t realize what happened. The third death was so incredibly random, and didn’t feel like justice at all.

Read the trigger warnings, and be prepared for it to be worse than what you’re anticipating.

Overall, from start to finish, the story itself was beautiful, but challenging. Some of the subject matter made me put the book down and walk away for a few days. But I liked the ending. I just didn’t like the way it was written, and probably won’t revisit this author.

Content Warnings

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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leahisreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

yeast_beast's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective 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? No

4.0

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