Enlightening! I love historical fictions that have little nuggets of real history woven in. I never knew about Chinese immigrants in the Caribbean, how Caribbean women were offered nursing positions in the UK, or how cultures can bleed into one another.

The writing of this felt fresh, altering from not only different POVs but different timelines as the mother tells the story of her life. Not only do their main characters have POVs, but you get little insights from side characters as well, making each character feel more individual.

TW: Suicide, Alcohol Abuse, Death, Rape (not described), homophobia, sexism, domestic abuse

Honestly had no idea what to expect from this book but the thing that stood out to me was the prose, just beautiful. I wish I would have physically read it instead of audio because I appreciate poetic writing more in the written format, but it was still great as an audio.

While I liked the overall story, it didn’t really have any emotional impact on me in the way I’m sure it has to others. The tragedies couldn’t hold as much weight as I would have liked because we’re watching their lives unfold from a very high level and jumping timelines. Honestly, make this book longer, so I can get emotionally attached to the characters.

I do think however this book might stick with me, and if so - I’ll boost that rating 😬

Was left a little disappointed reading this. I guess the way it was hyped up had me thinking it was going to be this mind blowing shit, but it was in fact very average concepts with very average writing. Liked the small character growth in Jason, but the plot started to get very repetitive.