Reviews with content warning for Abortion - After Hours on Milagro Street

Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez

19 reviews

wanderlust_romance's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

SO GOOD! This book busted my romance slump. Everything was on point! The story, the characters, the steam, the small town, the mystery…it all just came together so well. And on top of all of that, there was just enough hint of mysticism/magical realism to make everything shine. I loved Alex and Jeremiah’s love story.

AHOMS was doing a whole heck of a lot. It examines Latinx (more specifically Mexican American erasure) in a small town, thereby challenging the romance standard of white characters being centered in that setting. It looks at gentrification and political interests in terms of historical preservation. It taps into the ways racial & ethnic stereotypes can feed into our sense of self for POC. It reflects on how homecoming can be wrought with emotion and conflict, and how so much can change in the time one has been away. It subtly and consciously uses the town name (Freedom, Kansas) alongside narrative concepts and character arcs focused on homecoming, liberation, independence, and unburdening. AND IT DOES IT ALL SO WELL!

And the chemistry between Alex and Jeremiah? Hoooooooo boy. The Profe is a cinna-dom and knows how to be a boss when he needs to

Content Warnings

gabyhat's review

Go to review page

funny hopeful medium-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

sailormar's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious 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

5.0

I would give this book 6 stars if allowed. Wow. WOW. UGH so good.

Warning that you will need to love an unlikeable heroine, like I do. Alex starts off the book as mean as a snake and shitty and guarded and above her hometown, but the redemption arc here is CHEFS KISS. Alex grows on you as you learn about her past and how she came to be how she is, and her journey of growth made me shed a tear or two (who hasn’t had to get out of their own way in order to become the person they dreamed of being??).

Jeremiah. What a stud. What a beautiful, kindhearted, marshmallow soft, exuberant, giant nerd of a man. I haven’t ever seen a grumpy sunshine with a man that I felt pulled it off but BOY is Angelina M. Lopez a sorceress and she figured it out.

I loved their individual journeys. I loved the ghost in the bar. I loved the quest involving the secret treasure and the history of traqueros in the south and Midwest and their colonias in the US. I loved the personal and familial redemption. This book truly had everything. A damn near perfect book.

Content Warnings

pagesandtales's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

This sure started off with a bang! XD I did really like this. It's got all the family feels, a haunted building, food, a hot nerdy professor, and more. Sure made me miss family gatherings though.

Content Warnings

kylieqrada's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious 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

This was sooooo good. I loved learning about the history of traquederos in Kansas, and the setting was so fleshed out and real. The only part I didn't like were the sex scenes. Not for me.

Content Warnings

bookishmillennial's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective 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

disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not, regardless if I add stars or not. Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial

I was so surprised by this one! Alex started this book off HOT! She did not hold back! I was howling at her first interaction with Jeremiah hahaha. Their chemistry and tension was off the charts. I was sweating reading this book -- also because we are having a wild ass heat wave (climate change is real) but still!! Angelina knew was she was doing writing this damn steamy book!

I actually had no idea about the 5th or 6th generation Mexican American families in the central states, but I wasn't surprised at these stories being suppressed and erased by our American history books. I deeply enjoyed the mystery that Alex and Jeremiah unraveled when it came to the ownership deeds of Loretta's bar. It was reminiscent of National Treasure but within a small town in Kansas with a bit more longing and banter hehe.

I also really enjoyed the introduction to Alex's two sisters Gillian & Sissy, and I look forward to their love stories next!

Steam: 3/5

Quotations that stood out to me:

Freedom, Kansas had been the home of her sprawling Mexican-American family for five generations, starting with her great-great León grandparents who’d arrived near the beginning of the 1900s. It was a story she’d gotten tired of explaining to people. No one expected a woman that looked like her—brown skin, ball of a nose with a wide bridge, black hair, and deep brown eyes—to be from the heartland. No one anticipated that her family sometimes had deeper and longer roots in the country than their white families had.

Apparently, she and her sisters could only get along long-distance. That didn’t change what she was here to do. She would double Gillian’s investment and make sure Sissy’s recipes shined on the menu. They didn’t have to like her. They just had to stay out of her way.

She seemed half his height, but the sense of her filled the room.

This was such an important story to be told, not only about who Americans were but about who Americans are.

“We’ll showcase the full story of Freedom’s evolution but, most excitingly, we’ll be able to tell the little sung story of the Midwestern colonias from Milagro Street, which was home to one of the first. This neighborhood, like other colonias throughout the Midwest, provided services, support, and a sense of home for Mexican immigrants arriving to work on the railroad. Even though few colonias still survive today, they are a large part of why you have pockets of fourth-and fifth-generation Mexican-American social groups in towns throughout the central states.”

“But please believe that the idea of me playing white savior to your community is anathema to everything I believe in and everything I’ve built my career on. I want who’s perceived as the winners to change. I want people to know that there’s a truer, richer story to our past than what they’ve been told. All I want here, all I care about, is that your family’s important story is heard.”

His passion, academic and nerdy, was like a flame between her legs.

How did he focus on her and not on the heavy weight of ineffectiveness he felt? How did he apologize for the centuries of entrenched other-ism based on the melanin in an American’s skin?

The big, goofy, hot, brainy, kinda sweet puppy.

You didn’t look like her, as Latina as her, without dealing with racism in all its glorious forms. Although most people would assume she’d jump straight to mad, she’d actually greeted it with every color of the rainbow—shock, a snappy comeback, a punch, a blank look and a hollow ache, ignoring it, losing her fricking mind.

He could do this. He could take care of this woman who took care of everyone else.

She claimed the title “bitch.” But she was the heart that felt too much. She was the angel who was enraged that she couldn’t avenge them all.

Everyone kept calling Alex strong. But what took more strength: Gripping on to a sword? Or putting it down and risking getting stabbed?

Small-town stories have sometimes bugged me for seeming to imply that an ideal, pastoral vision of America didn’t include people of color. Small towns are a representation of America, and that America includes my family: part of a community since 1908, tortillas at every meal, huge fifty-person family gatherings for lunch every Sunday after mass, a Mexican food stand at our town’s annual Halloween celebration, and piñatas at every birthday party.

Content Warnings

sydapel's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

Holy cow why did I put this one off for so long. Had me sobbing at midnight from the emotional pay off, and I don think I've loved a contemporary MMC like this since Josh Templeman. I'm in awe of how Lopez manages to write such a beautiful story about community and forgiveness that's also unbearably hot. I hope that she's planning to return to this town and soon.

Content Warnings

dearbookboyfriend's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

5.0

Content Warnings

amberinpieces's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful mysterious 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

Content Warnings

More...