3.99 AVERAGE


A beautiful book about self love, motherhood, and family. This main character was so well done. Interesting and frustrating and heartbreaking. The switch between past and present provided clever cliff hangers and kept me reading. The hook and pacing are perfect. A great spring read, if you can handle the large segment in the middle about the harsh realities of single motherhood with a newborn.

Captivating is too tame a word. The beautiful weather of today faded into nothing and I was transported to the dark rich soil of the woods, the streets of San Francisco, and hot sun-baked earth of farm land. I cried but couldn't stop reading. I had to scour the back of the book reading the provided definitions and the best I could come up with for this book is Witch Hazel, it certainly cast its spell on me.
emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Good book but a few of the big words :(

This was good 

Beautiful story of a young girl who grew up bouncing around foster families learning how to accept love from others and, most importantly, how to love herself.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

read for senior year of high school. colleen hoover esque book 

Wow! What a book. A gift from my sister, this story of a young woman who grew up in California foster care was beautiful and heart breaking. An easy and compelling story which included passages about the meanings of flowers and made me wish I had fresh cut flowers in my life every day.

I picked up this book on a whim when it was sitting on the break room table last year, and then promptly forgot about it. I dug it out again because it was assigned as the book club book for the month- and I was quite happy with what I read. It wasn't by far the best book I've ever read, and Victoria wasn't the easiest protagonist to relate to, given that our lives are so different, but you can't help but be swept into her story anyway. The imagery is lovely, the shifts in time were well executed, and you can't help but love the supporting characters, even if at times you want to shake Victoria. My only complaint is that authors find it way too easy to use the unplanned pregnancy card as a crutch to carry the plot. Need your character to develop past being a selfish twit? Get them knocked up! It's too common, and it was a bit of a cop out- which caused me to rate down for it.
challenging dark sad tense fast-paced