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pagesandtales's review
- 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
Graphic: Sexual content, Racism, and Alcohol
Moderate: Racial slurs
Minor: Abortion, Animal cruelty, and Pregnancy
jadatrack's review against another edition
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Alcohol, and Sexual content
thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, and Racial slurs
Moderate: Misogyny, Abandonment, and Classism
Minor: Animal cruelty and Abortion
kylieqrada's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Alcohol, Sexual content, and Racism
Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, and Racial slurs
Minor: Pregnancy, Abortion, and Animal cruelty
bookishmillennial's review
- 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
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.
Graphic: Alcohol, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Pregnancy, Abortion, and Animal cruelty
dolores_madil's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Bullying, Classism, Cursing, Sexism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Classism, and Racial slurs
Minor: Pregnancy
pointeshoebookworm's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Classism, Racism, Alcohol, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Alcoholism and Addiction
lexa's review
5.0
Graphic: Sexual content and Racism
Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Racial slurs
Minor: Misogyny and Animal cruelty
amberinpieces's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Alcohol, Cursing, and Sexual content
Moderate: Classism and Racism
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Bullying, and Abortion
kfmcf's review
- 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
4.75
I HAVE to give it a 4.75 for now though because the copy editing is a MESS. There were no less than 3 typos and that's too too many.
But okay this book starts off with a literal bang and then the t e n s i o n throughout the book is just delicious. Mixed with the bit of mystery scouting? So good. And the cast of characters is incredible. Alex has a lot of growth and really made me feel for her and her journey.
Jeremiah needed to not wear so many fedoras also. Like I know that's a nitpick but they are v much not the look atm ha.
Graphic: Racial slurs, Classism, Racism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Alcohol and Colonisation