This was my first book by Anna and certainly won’t be my last! I just loved the characters - AND the character growth for Jackson in particular was fantastic. Learning about racism as a privileged white man in your mid-20s is difficult but NEEDED. He really stepped up and showed Oleander that he would put in the work 👏 I also love that Oleander is fat, brown, and bisexual - representation was immaculate! Also having an FMC that has survived a near r*pe and sexual assault and hearing her feelings and thoughts on it made me feel very seen and validated as someone who has also survived both of these things.
The only reason I dropped this down to 4.25 is because I feel like there was… too much sex? Idk I just wish there were maybe 2-3 less sex scenes? I wanted more of the STORY.
I am UGLY CRYING over the last 50ish pages holy shit. I loved this book so much, especially learning about Sài Gòn and Vietnam and their history.
For some reason I didn’t feel the romantic love connection between Vivi and Lan which is why I bumped the rating down a bit. I loved them together, but maybe just as best friends? I’m not sure why 😭
Okay… I only got 7% into this ARC (thank you to the author, I apologize pls don’t read this DNF explanation) but this book already pissed me off way too many times:
There are so many weird and unnecessary similes (ex: it clicked like a well-oiled gear)
The longest description of this guy’s penis (Jesus H. Christ move on)
The crunchy sock in Gerard’s room 🤢
Gross sexist lines such as “breasts you could get lost between,” “hump-and-dump,” and my final straw was “I shriek like a girl”
I was very excited to read this but I can’t do it if the rest of the book is anything like the first 7%