Reviews with content warning for Grief - Stay with My Heart

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Stay with My Heart by Tashie Bhuiyan

7 reviews

katiemcgregor's review against another edition

emotional 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

I appreciate the Asian Readathon for encouraging me to seek out a book by a Bangladeshi author because I think Bhuiyan's writing has a lot of charm. Lately teenage characters have been driving me crazy because of the "all logic out the window" plots that appear in their stories. I don't expect (or want) teenage characters to be fully realized. They're teenagers. But I do think they can be flawed and still have a reasonable thought process behind the decisions they make.

Bhuiyan navigated this nicely. While some of the deception could have been solved in a much simpler way, I feel like Liana's reasoning made sense for her character. I appreciated that the pop culture references were done tastefully and the writing flowed well and was easy to get through.

I maybe wish that things were a little more developed regarding the other characters (they were but they weren't?) and I'm not sure how I feel about the conclusion with the family issues. I do understand the choice of an open ended conclusion rather than a perfect one because I think it's more realistic for this type of conflict, but maybe a little more on-page progress would have been nice? Some sort of coming-to-an-understanding? I don't know. It's fine as is, but I'd be curious to see different routes explored.

Looking forward to reading more of Bhuiyan's work.

Content Warnings

sandwiiche's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful 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

whew, tashie bhuiyan really knows how to hit home with her books 😮‍💨
this might be my favourite from her yet - the discussion of mental health, the found family and the romance sideplot was all really heartwarming

spoiler for all her books

im seeing a little recurring theme throughout each of tashie bhuiyan's 3 books - in each one, her fmc wishes for happiness in whatever form it may be, and damn that really hits deep. also where can i get a friendship group like third eye???? 😭😭

Content Warnings

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful 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

4.0

I loved that the titles of the chapters were song titles and that there were just so many playlists throughout this book. Honestly, I kind of want to see if someone has made a playlist of all the songs in this book because there were a lot!

Anyway, this is a sweet, music themed romance with the found family trope that was just lovely. Third Eye is such a lovely group of people, and I loved how they accepted Liana into their fold. You could tell that they all cared deeply for each other, and the characters were just so well done.

However, there was one thing that really took me out of the story: Skye saying that he got a tattoo every couple of weeks after turning 18. I'm sorry, what?? Who has that kind of time and money at 18??? He also has a piercing at some point, and I just don't believe all this happened in 6 months. I don't know why it bothered me so much, but it did lol.

Anway, if you like music and found family, definitely check this one out!

Content Warnings