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A review by bookish_brooklyn
Branches of Healing: Tales of Unsung Heroes by Lorah Jaiyn, Bella Emy, Autumn Sand, J.L. Leslie, Ava Wood, Verlene Landon, Amy Allen, Natalia Schellhaas
2.0
Rather than review these individually, I’m choosing to review them collectively. These stories all dealt with love and loss, in various forms, and in some instances, finding oneself after the death of a loved one, or learning to move on in those circumstances. Truthfully, 7/8 stories for me felt like they fell into the trope of girl falls in love with boy/or, girl loses her twin brother and falls in love with his best friend, giving herself all sorts of angst in between.
Example; in one of these stories, we have a character who believes her one true love is tragically killed in a terror attack. Okay, sad, very sad, and at first I felt for her, but then when she unexpectedly meets a new boy in a library, and feelings start to happen, great, she deserves to move on, sure, and of course you’re bound to feel heartache for them, but when she constantly clearly hasn’t allowed herself to move on, still saying yes when new boy proposes, yet still constantly thinking of her lost love? And when the unexpected happens, the new boy is so understanding and only sings praises to the girl? Look, I feel like that’s just unrealistic.
I’m not a prude by any means, but some of these stories had some sex filler too, like, boy and girl fantasizing about one another, both often hot and hungry for one another, and, well, let’s just say I found these sex scenes, in the majority of this anthology, to be anticlimactic, at best.
I feel like the stories at times didn’t really flow either, although there was one story that I liked where a little girl brings happiness into her father’s life, Sammy, who was so precious, and Jeanine, who was at times relatable, with her cat Bella, were pretty much my favourite things about this anthology.
That’s not to say that you, dear reader, won’t like this. I feel like I know there’s a scope of readers that will enjoy this anthology, I however, am not one of them.
Example; in one of these stories, we have a character who believes her one true love is tragically killed in a terror attack. Okay, sad, very sad, and at first I felt for her, but then when she unexpectedly meets a new boy in a library, and feelings start to happen, great, she deserves to move on, sure, and of course you’re bound to feel heartache for them, but when she constantly clearly hasn’t allowed herself to move on, still saying yes when new boy proposes, yet still constantly thinking of her lost love? And when the unexpected happens, the new boy is so understanding and only sings praises to the girl? Look, I feel like that’s just unrealistic.
I’m not a prude by any means, but some of these stories had some sex filler too, like, boy and girl fantasizing about one another, both often hot and hungry for one another, and, well, let’s just say I found these sex scenes, in the majority of this anthology, to be anticlimactic, at best.
I feel like the stories at times didn’t really flow either, although there was one story that I liked where a little girl brings happiness into her father’s life, Sammy, who was so precious, and Jeanine, who was at times relatable, with her cat Bella, were pretty much my favourite things about this anthology.
That’s not to say that you, dear reader, won’t like this. I feel like I know there’s a scope of readers that will enjoy this anthology, I however, am not one of them.