From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James McBride

Start date: June 1, 2024

Finish date: June 30, 2024

Discussion: MODERN / POPULAR READS

Why we're reading this: June 2024 - Modern Selection
[close] June 2024 - Modern Selection

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MODERN / POPULAR READS

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - *SPOILERS*
By spoko · 8 posts · 51 views

last updated Aug 26, 2025 11:57AM

The Alchemist — *SPOILERS*
By Joanna Loves … · 105 posts · 512 views

last updated Aug 25, 2025 02:19PM

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What Members Thought

Jun 07, 2024 spoko rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, book-club

A weak ★★★★☆ for me. The setting & stories are interesting, but in the end the whole thing felt needlessly complicated. Not only did I feel like there were ends left untied, but truthfully, I wasn’t even sure what all the ends were at that point. I’m OK with an open, unresolved ending, but this was just a mess. Overall, as I expect from McBride, there were some well-drawn characters and a lot of quirky, interesting texture to the insular society of Chicken Hill (and its environs). And if it were ...more

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Jan 22, 2025 Laurel Bradshaw rated it it was amazing

Shelves: color-rating-blue, mystery, pennsylvania, 1930s, perspectives-book-club

4.5 blue stars, rounded up.

This is a rich tapestry with a lot of threads. Some reviewers have complained there are too many characters and it is too meandering, but this is a book about community and neighbors. It is like listening to your grandfather tell stories about the people he knew back when. It is those stories that is the heart and soul here. The plight of Dodo after the death of Chona is the glue that binds all these stories together and kept me reading to see how "karma" might play ou ...more

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Aug 24, 2024 TheAccidental Reader rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audge, moore-bookclu

Satisfying ending. As soon as I finish a book I go back and re-read the first chapter. In this particular case, that was very helpful, because before delving in, we had zero idea who were all the people named in that first chapter. It's quite concerning that the author thinks the Schuykill River somehow drains into the Chesapeake Bay. The idea of state troopers patrolling Route 76, makes some sense, but what are Pennsylvania State Troopers doing investigating bodies found in a well in Pottstown, ...more

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May 10, 2024 Jody rated it liked it

I really wanted to love this book. There was much to like here—excellent writing, strong and vivid characters, great insight into Jewish immigrants and their religion and culture, empathy for the Black experience in America etc. Unfortunately, the story never really grabbed me. The pacing was a bit slow and tedious. The author really rushed the ending and failed to draw out the drama and suspense that the rest of the book had carefully and painstakingly laid the foundation for. Not as good as th ...more

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