I promise I’m still around y’all! I ended up doing a 3:1 book read this time around because I realized I really need to get through my book for judging. I’ve got quite a few left to read still, so you may not hear from me again for a few more weeks. May 15 is when all of my comments are due, so you’ll probably see me shortly after that. And of course, once the winner(s) are announced, I’ll talk a bit more about them and stuff.

Until then, here’s what I listened to as an Audiobook on 2x speed on Saturday while I cleared out over 200+ books from my bookshelves because I had officially ran out of room for books.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
By: James McBride
Genre: Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 380
Published: August 8, 2023
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Dates Read: April 20, 2024
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

In 1972, workers were digging a new foundation in Pottstown, Pennsylvania when they found a skeleton at the bottom of a well. To figure out who it is, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store goes back 40 years to the secrets of the neighborhood of Chicken Hill, a dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side.

This book was ultimately about the community of Chicken Hill, rallying together in order to protect a young deaf boy they’ve named Dodo, from being taken by the state to an institution. It starts off with a murder mystery, but to be honest, that wasn’t at all the most interesting part of the story.

This is one of those books where I kind of wish I did ½ star ratings and not rounding up, because I don’t really think this is a 4 star book, but I don’t think it’s a 3 star one either. I listened to this on 2x speed on a Saturday while I did some deep cleaning of my book shelves and yes, I totally missed some things here and there, but a lot of it was repeated stuff. I know the author was showing how all the characters were connected, but the characters all already knew this, and we, the reader, mostly knew that stuff too.

We meet a lot of characters in this book, but I really enjoyed Chuna, the outspoken wife who runs the grocery store. And of course Dodo.

Was this book of the year for me – no. It actually left me a bit disappointed to be completely honest. It’s rich and full of characters, but it also went on and on in places it could have been edited out and also broke away from the story to give us background information that wasn’t always necessary to keep the book going. Maybe I’ll sit down and physically read it one day, and not as an audiobook, but as of right now, this is where I stand with it.