I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I got this book recommended to me by Louis Partridge during press for Enola Holmes, but it sounded very interesting. After reading it, I can conclude it was!

Though there were a couple of letters that, even with the context provided, did not seem very monumental to me, there were also many letters that initially seemed unimportant but ended up impacting me the most.

This collection had a tough job of placing widowed wives and husbands among the letters of children writing to their favorite animators and the like, but I think everything was balanced fairly well (if not a little too war-heavy for my personal tastes).

I hope to remember these for a long while!

What started as a cute little story about a curious and precocious young girl ended as a very real coming of age story that left me with tears pouring down my face.

I was often very moved by little quips or observances Annie John was making. She saw the world how I see the world.

This story also has a heavy focus on the relationship between a mother and daughter and how that relationship changes as they both get older. I often felt very seen by Kincaid’s descriptions of how that growing apart sensation feels.

I am shocked by how emotional I got at the end, but it’s just one of those instances of a book finding a person at the exact right time I think.

Normally I hate multi-generational novels, but I did enjoy the weaving of the three women’s stories here.

Sometimes I felt like the the feminism in the book had 2016 girlboss energy which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but maybe it just made it feel a tad more shallow than I would prefer??

Anyway I would love to have a cozy witchy cabin bequeathed to me if anyone is in the market to bequeath one