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A review by dogoodwithbooks
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
emotional
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
This book was something else. While I don’t really read a whole lot of historical fiction and that I thought the pacing at first was pretty slow, I was captivated by McBride’s storytelling of the residents in Chicken Hill. Capturing the various points of intersectionality in terms of race, social class, and disability (just to name a few), McBride’s stories of the African American and Jewish residents who live in Pottstown’s Chicken Hill is both heartbreaking yet hopeful.
Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Forced institutionalization, Sexual assault, Antisemitism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Child abuse, Medical content, Ableism, and Child death
Minor: Infertility, Death of parent, Excrement, and Abandonment