A review by clarkg
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

5.0

"The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" is a beautiful, lyrical tale of community and solidarity. McBride has created a rich world full of brilliant, dynamic characters whose fates entwine in surprising places. I appreciated many things about this book--the language, the care given to crafting the story's Black and Jewish communities, the breadth and depth of disability representation (though not without flaw), and its callbacks to a larger conversation about the possibilities and limits of justice on stolen land. If I had to describe "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" in a single word, it would be "abundant".

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Infertility, Mental illness, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Alcoholism, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Slavery, and Alcohol