booking_along's reviews
1873 reviews

nice addition to the series and an interesting world/door but not my favorite from the series overall. 

still a good read with nice commentary and realistic portray of what adoption especially out of country adoptions can be like. 

i’m so disappointed.


but this just didn’t work for me for so many reasons that i can’t give it another rating. 

starting with how women in this are used as a rage reason instead of making them actual characters or even necessary - why include women if you only going to rape them or throw them aside for other reasons if it da story about a black slave? doesn’t he have enough reasons to be mad without the reader having to read through a horrible rape scene? (which by the way i hate anyways especially if they are written by men) 

i also don’t understand why this was necessary as a huckleberry finn retelling? 
this character of Jim wasn’t anything like the original version. 
it’s good to get an educated slave BUT why make it a retelling if you change the character completely? 
why not do a whole new story about a slave and tell what is done in this book without the connection to the other story?


i also didn’t like the writing style nor the differences how james spoke depending on who he was talking to or thought was listening - either he over simplified his speech or he talked in a way nobody would have talked outside of an overproduced theater production. 


i am not saying the story was bad or unnecessary - the opposite is true actually. 
i think this could have been an incredibly story but as it is there is just a lot of strange moments together that for me made no sense and could have been left out and made be book better. 


clearly i am in the minority here and that’s fine! i am very happy that so many people are getting something out of this book and especially with what is currently going on in the US it’s certainly necessary for people to remember that enslaving people and taking away their rights and voice is not the right way to go -ever. 


but this just wasn’t for me and i am pretty sure this author just doesn’t work for me personally. 

i read the book and afterwards listened to the audio book and both are worth the time but different experiences from each other. 

Hewitt reads the book and you can hear the emotions she felt while writing specific moments -the grief and sadness talking about her mother, but also the love and eagerness for specific moments and topics. 
it makes the book felt a bit more personal, a bit more memoir feeling instead of a book filled with ideas and inspirations to also fill the readers life with little magical moments. 

i recommend both highly if you want something that reminds you that you can find reminders and love and hope and yes magic in little moments and/or holidays. 

if that doesn’t sound like you type of book? don’t read this. 
but if it sounds like something fitting to you? 
divide your format and go for it! it’s not a huge commitment but worth the time spend it just too experience of a different persons life and their small moments of life that made it special to them and how it can inspire you. 

and also how grief and sadness is very much part of life and okay to feel and experience as long as you need - Hewitt reminded me a lot of that and i think sometimes that is necessary to be reminded of. 
be it the grief for a person or a life or a moment or a situation…. grief needs to be felt .

and especially in the audio book i think that is very clearly felt.  

this is a nice book. 
it’s a mixture of memoir, maybe even a bit self-help(ish) and do it yourself handbook rolled into on. 

i don’t think that combination will work for everyone - the first section is very much focused on Hewitt working through her grief, remembering her mother and taking about that part of her life; where as the rest of the book is more of a “how to” typ of book from generating ideas for parties or little daily moments to recipes and back to how to plan parities. 


it does work in some way since from the very first mention Hewitt talks about how her mother used “magic” in ways to make life special and how she would make a day special with little things and Hewitt more or less shares those ideas on how to make a day more special or magic in this book. 

as i said - i don’t think necessarily a book that will work for everyone but for me personally it was mostly well done. 
it was a bit of a strange mixture and felt a little jumpy in parts (sometimes repeat what was already said before, because she would jump from telling a story before her third child was born or how they found out she was pregnant to when he was born only to go back to a story before she knew she was pregnant or just found out… a bit more rearranging to make that a consistent timeline without the back and forth might have been nice but as it is it works too… or the jump from sharing her life into how to being this “magic” into the readers own life) 


if you are not somebody that believes small things can make a big impact, this book isn’t for you!
 
if you don’t believe in holiday magic - be it christmas time and what can be magical about an during that time or any other time of the year? not the book for you. 


if you want an in depth memoir of this actress? nope, not it.


but if you want a book that shares a woman and her way through losing a very important person, how she found a way to connect that loss with the love for her mother into her life after her mothers passing and trying? go for it.