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readermonica's review against another edition
4.0
This is a sweetly painful story that revolves around the loss of a family's son/husband/brother. Cross-Smith does an excellent job putting her reader in the minds of the her three main characters and their complicated but deeply bonded relationships. I particularly enjoyed the way that Eamon's perspective is given voice as a central part of the story.
You can find me at:
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Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
You can find me at:
•(♥).•*Monlatable Book Reviews*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @MonlatReader
Instagram: @readermonica
Facebook: Monica Reeds
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
bookwormfr_t0's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I did not finish this, I put it down half way because I lost interest so I read another book and when I finished that, I didn't feel like picking this back up.
The repetitiveness and toxicity that was Dalton and Evi's 'relationship' was irritating to read... Maybe I just didn't have the patience for the characters.
I really didn't like the characters dialogue; there was a lot of 'brother'/'bro' and cheap "brotherly" insults that fell flat and didn't sell the brothers' bond like it was intended to. However, all the writing minus the dialogue had depth and simplicity that was beautiful like a warm cup of tea, but then the dialogue would take place like a sudden bump in the road and I spilt my tea everywhere. The dialogue just didn't match the beautiful writing - it wasn't realistic and felt very cringey.
I will read more from this author because her writing style was unique and pleasant to read.
The repetitiveness and toxicity that was Dalton and Evi's 'relationship' was irritating to read... Maybe I just didn't have the patience for the characters.
I really didn't like the characters dialogue; there was a lot of 'brother'/'bro' and cheap "brotherly" insults that fell flat and didn't sell the brothers' bond like it was intended to. However, all the writing minus the dialogue had depth and simplicity that was beautiful like a warm cup of tea, but then the dialogue would take place like a sudden bump in the road and I spilt my tea everywhere. The dialogue just didn't match the beautiful writing - it wasn't realistic and felt very cringey.
I will read more from this author because her writing style was unique and pleasant to read.
lulureads365's review against another edition
3.0
I’ve been going back and forth about this book for long enough....it’s time for a review. Lol.
There was so much I loved about this story, but hated at the same time. Lol. Its all about grief and trying to figure out how to continue living without your beating heart. I feel like the author had a strong grip on that concept early on, but then everything (and everyone) started unraveling. Which...had a realistic feel to it (poor Dalton). And maybe that was the point of it all; there is no cookie-cutter way of living and coping with grief.
There was so much I loved about this story, but hated at the same time. Lol. Its all about grief and trying to figure out how to continue living without your beating heart. I feel like the author had a strong grip on that concept early on, but then everything (and everyone) started unraveling. Which...had a realistic feel to it (poor Dalton). And maybe that was the point of it all; there is no cookie-cutter way of living and coping with grief.
bnjreads's review against another edition
3.0
Whiskey and Ribbons tells the story of love, loss, grief, forgiveness and the will to move forward. I felt the pacing of this one was a little too slow for my liking, which made me want to DNF, I know, crazy because so many others have loved this one. I think the writing is beautiful but I wish I had more of the aftermath between Dalton and Evi. The story wrapped up clean but I would’ve loved to have known what both families thought of their decision. Once the pivotal moment occurs, the book flies from that point on, but that occurs at pg. 175 out of 258, which I think just took too long.
Overall, I would recommend this book to those who don’t mind a slow build. The payoff is there, but I wish we had a few more chapters to add to this story.
Overall, I would recommend this book to those who don’t mind a slow build. The payoff is there, but I wish we had a few more chapters to add to this story.
readinghill's review against another edition
3.0
This is a quiet, slow book that centers around grieve and how we continue living through it. Well written, great premise just too slow for my taste.
tararepucci's review against another edition
5.0
This is the year I become obsessed with Leesa Cross-Smith. I read This Close to Okay in March and loved it, so I promptly checked Whiskey & Ribbons out of the library. I loved this one even more. It is piano music and snow thunder, love stories and the specter of death. I will now read all of her short stories while I impatiently wait for her next novel, thank you very much. Read this when you are in the mood for a novel about loss, family secrets and the intricacies of grief told from three very different but equally compelling points of view. It is The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin meets The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez. Best paired with steak tacos, baked cheesy veggies and rice. XO, Tara
whatmeganreads's review against another edition
5.0
I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and I am still thinking about it. I loved it so much, and for so many different reasons-some personal, some literary-that I’m so afraid I’ll just ramble on and on incoherently and never be able to succinctly express my thoughts. I’m going to try to break it down below...without the incoherent rambling. :)
Plot & Pacing: At the most basic level, this is a story about a woman (and new mother) trying to figure out how to live and love after the death of her husband – a police officer who was killed in the line of duty. The story uses multiple POV and pivots around a central moment in time – a snow storm – while weaving in flashbacks to flesh out the characters and backstory. And honestly, at the risk of sounding completely corny and cliché – ya’ll, I mean it, this is going to sound completely corny and cliché — this book is paced like a snow storm. NO SERIOUSLY. It really is! Follow me here: much of the book is in slow motion – there’s a feeling of being suspended in time, curled up and watching the story slowly come together and build, bit by bit. There are also segments of swirling chaos, raw and raging, and then moments of absolute crystalline beauty. It comes together wonderfully.
“I think of our breaking hearts sounding like the snow—so quiet we can barely hear them, but after the right amount of time we can look around and see how everything is changed.“
Characters: These characters. I adored them all! I felt like they were real people. Flawed, funny, imperfect, relatable, completely authentic. I loved them all, but especially Dalton, Eamon, and Evi. I adored those three equally – I can’t pick a favorite.
“Grief made me want to give up. Other people had prayed for me to be strong but that wasn’t the prayer I prayed. The prayer I prayed was Jesus Christ, take it take it take it.”
Writing: This author has a completely singular style. It’s lyrical and descriptive without being a barrier to the movement of the storyline. Cross-Smith has a way of describing things in such a way that I found myself mentally saying, “Yes! Oh my gosh, I never thought of it that way but that’s EXACTLY RIGHT!” She lays grief bare and makes it a tangible thing you can pick up and examine. Reading it during a time of the year when I feel loss very deeply, I used up a whole pack of post-its to record the quotes I related to and wanted to keep close.
“I was glad to be next to him. I was glad to be in his presence. I hoped that by simply being close to him, I could take some of whatever burden he was carrying, hoped he could feel the lifting.”
On top of all of the above, this novel is set in Louisville, Kentucky during a snowstorm. I have to tell you that I read the majority of this book in Kentucky. During a freak spring snow storm. We even had thunder snow….which happened in the book too. I have to confess, I had a little Bastian in The Neverending Story moment – it felt so REAL, as if the story was unfolding at that very moment, just an hour down the road. It was uncanny. And undeniably magical.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
Plot & Pacing: At the most basic level, this is a story about a woman (and new mother) trying to figure out how to live and love after the death of her husband – a police officer who was killed in the line of duty. The story uses multiple POV and pivots around a central moment in time – a snow storm – while weaving in flashbacks to flesh out the characters and backstory. And honestly, at the risk of sounding completely corny and cliché – ya’ll, I mean it, this is going to sound completely corny and cliché — this book is paced like a snow storm. NO SERIOUSLY. It really is! Follow me here: much of the book is in slow motion – there’s a feeling of being suspended in time, curled up and watching the story slowly come together and build, bit by bit. There are also segments of swirling chaos, raw and raging, and then moments of absolute crystalline beauty. It comes together wonderfully.
“I think of our breaking hearts sounding like the snow—so quiet we can barely hear them, but after the right amount of time we can look around and see how everything is changed.“
Characters: These characters. I adored them all! I felt like they were real people. Flawed, funny, imperfect, relatable, completely authentic. I loved them all, but especially Dalton, Eamon, and Evi. I adored those three equally – I can’t pick a favorite.
“Grief made me want to give up. Other people had prayed for me to be strong but that wasn’t the prayer I prayed. The prayer I prayed was Jesus Christ, take it take it take it.”
Writing: This author has a completely singular style. It’s lyrical and descriptive without being a barrier to the movement of the storyline. Cross-Smith has a way of describing things in such a way that I found myself mentally saying, “Yes! Oh my gosh, I never thought of it that way but that’s EXACTLY RIGHT!” She lays grief bare and makes it a tangible thing you can pick up and examine. Reading it during a time of the year when I feel loss very deeply, I used up a whole pack of post-its to record the quotes I related to and wanted to keep close.
“I was glad to be next to him. I was glad to be in his presence. I hoped that by simply being close to him, I could take some of whatever burden he was carrying, hoped he could feel the lifting.”
On top of all of the above, this novel is set in Louisville, Kentucky during a snowstorm. I have to tell you that I read the majority of this book in Kentucky. During a freak spring snow storm. We even had thunder snow….which happened in the book too. I have to confess, I had a little Bastian in The Neverending Story moment – it felt so REAL, as if the story was unfolding at that very moment, just an hour down the road. It was uncanny. And undeniably magical.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
melanie_page's review against another edition
5.0
This review was originally published at Grab the Lapels
Content Warnings: death of a spouse.
Leesa Cross-Smith’s first novel, Whiskey & Ribbons, released this month by Hub City Press, was a priority on my to-read list. It’s based on a short story from her collection entitled Every Kiss a War, which I loved. In fact, the it is one story I remember in detail. It is also called “Whiskey & Ribbons,” and you can read it Carve Magazine.
The novel is narrated by three people: Evangeline, Eamon, and Dalton. Each chapter cycles through these three in order, so if Evangeline leaves a cliffhanger, you have to read Eamon’s and then Dalton’s story before you get back to her. In the beginning, readers learn that Eamon was a police office killed in the line of duty. He and Evangeline had been married a couple of years, but the real tragedy is Evangeline is 9 months pregnant when he’s killed. The baby is born 16 days after his father’s death. Eamon’s brother, Dalton, moves in to help care for his sister-in-law and new nephew.
Evangeline narrates the present, and Dalton and Eamon take us to the past: when Eamon and Evangeline first met, how Dalton and Eamon became brothers after Dalton’s mom committed suicide and he didn’t know his father, through Dalton’s tepid relationships with his on-again/off-again girlfriend, and the news that Evangeline is pregnant.
The relationships of the three characters are beautifully complicated. In Eamon’s sections, we learn he’s an endearing, stand-up guy. But in the present, Eamon is dead; will Evangeline and Dalton fall in love now that they’re living together and co-parenting? Should they? They loved each other before as in-laws, so are they already loving/in love? Or should Dalton pursue a relationship he’s invested in with his co-worker, because by living with Evangeline, he’s putting his life on hold due to a promise he made his brother? There’s no doubt Evangeline grieves for her deceased husband. This scene is from shortly after his death, but before the baby is born:
Whiskey & Ribbons is unique. The cast is made up of African Americans, but this isn’t a novel about race (which Cross-Smith points out on Twitter, wondering why people feel it had to be). More surprising to me were the healthy male relationships. Dalton and Eamon express emotion, yet do guy stuff; they talk about women’s appearances, but are respectful overall. The brothers aren’t competitive, either. Recognizing their differences, they support each other. Most surprising is Evangeline’s admission that she was a virgin until marriage. I know it’s not common, but it’s also a chunk of the population that’s ignored/dismissed in fiction.
Cross-Smith writes beautifully throughout, creating words that fit together like a language collage that makes perfect sense. When Evangeline and Dalton kiss on page 3, Evangeline explains: "It was a kiss of ownership. It was a hot, dripping wax seal. The kiss was a lock and key. The kiss was a creaky gate in the wind." In one of his chapters, Eamon finds out a secret that he wasn’t meant to know. He describes his feelings about knowing what he does: "And now I was burdened with a secret that was never mine. A secret on loan. A ghost, haunting the wrong house."
A lovely, dreamy, challenging yet uplifting novel about family and love, Whiskey & Ribbons is not to be missed.
Thank you to Hub City Press for sending me an ARC of Whiskey & Ribbons in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings: death of a spouse.
Leesa Cross-Smith’s first novel, Whiskey & Ribbons, released this month by Hub City Press, was a priority on my to-read list. It’s based on a short story from her collection entitled Every Kiss a War, which I loved. In fact, the it is one story I remember in detail. It is also called “Whiskey & Ribbons,” and you can read it Carve Magazine.
The novel is narrated by three people: Evangeline, Eamon, and Dalton. Each chapter cycles through these three in order, so if Evangeline leaves a cliffhanger, you have to read Eamon’s and then Dalton’s story before you get back to her. In the beginning, readers learn that Eamon was a police office killed in the line of duty. He and Evangeline had been married a couple of years, but the real tragedy is Evangeline is 9 months pregnant when he’s killed. The baby is born 16 days after his father’s death. Eamon’s brother, Dalton, moves in to help care for his sister-in-law and new nephew.
Evangeline narrates the present, and Dalton and Eamon take us to the past: when Eamon and Evangeline first met, how Dalton and Eamon became brothers after Dalton’s mom committed suicide and he didn’t know his father, through Dalton’s tepid relationships with his on-again/off-again girlfriend, and the news that Evangeline is pregnant.
The relationships of the three characters are beautifully complicated. In Eamon’s sections, we learn he’s an endearing, stand-up guy. But in the present, Eamon is dead; will Evangeline and Dalton fall in love now that they’re living together and co-parenting? Should they? They loved each other before as in-laws, so are they already loving/in love? Or should Dalton pursue a relationship he’s invested in with his co-worker, because by living with Evangeline, he’s putting his life on hold due to a promise he made his brother? There’s no doubt Evangeline grieves for her deceased husband. This scene is from shortly after his death, but before the baby is born:
Backyard-wandering, full-moon pregnant in my turquoise maternity dress and tobacco-colored cowboy boots, I’d lose my way. Dalton would find me. He was always finding me. He’d try to lure me inside with lemon water, with sticky, stinky cheeses or a small green bowl of almonds, the darkest chocolate chips. He would shake the bowl, like I was a kitten waiting to hear the rattle of food.In this scene, the grief is for Eamon, but the focus is on Dalton’s care for her. Leesa Cross-Smith beautifully makes clear the love there, even when the characters don’t see it. Which can be one of the more frustrating parts of the novel. Evangeline — in the present — asks Dalton who he last had sex with, if he has a crush on his co-worker, if he wants to move out of her home. Her emotions wrecked, she could sound like a dependent high school girl with low self-esteem. But she is dependent. And she is broken by her grief. I plowed through her rude questions and comments and accepted that she doesn’t have to be likable.
Whiskey & Ribbons is unique. The cast is made up of African Americans, but this isn’t a novel about race (which Cross-Smith points out on Twitter, wondering why people feel it had to be). More surprising to me were the healthy male relationships. Dalton and Eamon express emotion, yet do guy stuff; they talk about women’s appearances, but are respectful overall. The brothers aren’t competitive, either. Recognizing their differences, they support each other. Most surprising is Evangeline’s admission that she was a virgin until marriage. I know it’s not common, but it’s also a chunk of the population that’s ignored/dismissed in fiction.
Cross-Smith writes beautifully throughout, creating words that fit together like a language collage that makes perfect sense. When Evangeline and Dalton kiss on page 3, Evangeline explains: "It was a kiss of ownership. It was a hot, dripping wax seal. The kiss was a lock and key. The kiss was a creaky gate in the wind." In one of his chapters, Eamon finds out a secret that he wasn’t meant to know. He describes his feelings about knowing what he does: "And now I was burdened with a secret that was never mine. A secret on loan. A ghost, haunting the wrong house."
A lovely, dreamy, challenging yet uplifting novel about family and love, Whiskey & Ribbons is not to be missed.
Thank you to Hub City Press for sending me an ARC of Whiskey & Ribbons in exchange for an honest review.