What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

"We plotted." ~ 47%

All is well in the Ramirez household until 13-year-old middle child Ruthy disappeared without a trace after track practice. It left the family scarred. Twelve years later, their mother, Dolores, struggles with mental health, weight gain and diabetes. Older sister Jessica juggles a newborn baby and demanding hospital job. And Nina has returned home after graduating college to medical school rejections and a measly retail job in the mall. 

Then one night, Jessica spots a woman with her missing sister's distinctive red hair and beauty mark on a Bad Girls type reality show going by the name of Ruby. After seeing Ruthy/Ruby on TV, the sisters hatch a plan to drive to Boston where the show is filmed. Dolores and her best friend join the sisters making it a family road trip filled with humor and hard truths, told in alternating narration that brings out each character's personality oh so perfectly. 

"Sometimes the wrong people remember you." ~ 15%

Family dynamics in fiction are always fascinating to read. Especially when the family is going through drama like the Puerto Rican family, Ramirez. Their road trip from Staten Island to Boston is one that will make readers LOL while appreciating the culture and light mystery. 

The best part of the novel wasn't even finding out what happened to Ruthy; it was the relationship between Dolores and her two remaining daughters, Nina and Jessica. Another major theme was self-realization and how you see yourself vs. how others see you. This was obviously the author's intent since the road trip to find Ruthy doesn't start until 80% through the book. It was the better story to tell up to very last sentence! 

"In truth, there was nobody I admired more than my sister." ~ 85%

Very good first impression for a debut novel! What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez is equal parts hilarious and intriguing. It explores the familial bonds between mothers, daughters and sisters. Usually I am not a fan of alternating narration, but Claire Jiménez nails it! This story could not have been told any other way. I recommend for chick lit lovers and book clubs for minority women. Get lost in this well written debut featuring strong Brown women! I'll keep an eye out for more from Claire Jiménez.

Happy Early Pub Day, Claire Jiménez! What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez will be available Tuesday, March 7, 2023.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez
Author: Claire Jiménez
Published: March 2023
Pages: 240
Edition: Galley
Genre: Chick Lit 
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

Series Sunday: No Plan B

(Jack Reacher #27) 

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

My Series Sunday pick is No Plan B, the 27th book in the Jack Reacher series by Lee and Andrew Child. One of my favorite grifters, Jack Reacher, arrived in Gerrardsville, Colorado, on a Monday. It is there that two witnesses to the same tragedy give two different accounts. One guy sees a woman throw herself in front of a bus. The other guy, Jack Reacher, sees the woman pushed to her death. Reacher follows the killer on foot, not knowing there is a secret conspiracy with many moving parts.

"It was a question of balance." ~ 48%

There is No Plan B when the threat is Reacher. He is 6'5", 250 lbs. and scruffy. You can't miss him. So why must the bad guys constantly try him? Underestimate him? Square up against him? Maybe the better question is why the author(s) continue putting Reacher in unnecessary situations where he has to fight his way out and drop countless bodies. For why?!

The only reason I did not DNF No Plan B is because I held out hope. I wanted the story to get more believable. More interesting. Different than the previous stop-in-a-small-town-witness-injustice-actively-go-after-bad-guys plot. I may have to stop reading the current releases in the Jack Reacher series and resume reading the earlier books for the character I fell in heavy like with. Because this new sh!t is not it.

Happy Early Pub Day, Lee and Andrew Child! No Plan B will be available Tuesday, October 25.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: No Plan B

Author: Lee and Andrew Child

Published: October 2022

Pages: 336

Edition: Galley

Genre: Mystery

Challenge: Perpetual Jack Reacher

Rating: 🖤

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"I'd known Precious forever, Stacia a year, and Tonya for just a minute. We were so different, but everybody loved them some double dutch. Sometimes we made a tight-knit crew; other days we couldn't get along for nothing."

~ Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe

We Find Our Way

"black women make the world go round—can make shit stop, too." ~ pg. 83

It has to be a gripping description for me to pick up poetry. I am very picky when it comes to spoken word/verse. Usually I stick with the very few I know: Rumi, Rupi Kaur, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni. However, a blurb from the author is what piqued my interest: "To describe this book, I wrote from the perspective of the black experience. My experience particularly. It's a book about grief, death, rebirth, ancestors, and spirit."

We Find Our Way is Reyna Biddy's latest and third collection of poetry. Themes include love, sacrifice, healing and hope. In just 162 pages, there is a variety of writing styles. Most poems are short yet thought-provoking while a couple are long and lyrical. I found myself pausing to reflect on certain lines. I see why Reyna Biddy is not only a poet but a self-love enthusiast. 

"soul work on standby" ~ pg. 11

Right away I noticed that We Find Our Way follows the trendy structure of all lowercase, no punctuation. Sometimes left margin, sometimes center spaced. Some poems made sense but didn't create the urge to dig deeper into thoughts before moving on to the next unrelated poem. 

Collections are supposed to flow smoothly from one poem to the next. But the formatting made it seem disjointed with the poems losing interpretation along the way. Perhaps the poems could have resonated with my soul more if the transitions were smoother. I can best describe it as papers falling to the floor then picked up in no particular order and stapled together. 

"watch your moods!" ~ pg. 58

Again, I am picky when it comes to poetry so my opinion could be unpopular. The good thing about poetry is that it hits readers differently. We Find Our Way may be worth YOUR reading.

Happy Early Pub Day, Reyna Biddy! We Find Our Way will be available Tuesday, October 25.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: We Find Our Way
Author: Reyna Biddy
Published: October 2022
Pages: 162
Edition: Galley
Genre: Poetry
Rating: 🖤 🖤

Wolf Hustle

"There was darkness that came with this business." ~ 77%

Wolf Hustle: A Black Woman on Wall Street is the true story of Cin Fabré. She learned how to hustle from her immigrant parents. Eventually she saved money to escape poverty in the South Bronx. A tip from an old friend pushed Cin in the direction of VTR Capital, a brokerage firm offshoot of the company where Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, had reigned. 

Cin rose through the ranks and broke the cycle of many Black/Brown people in "The Pit." Through her dedication, grueling hours and hustling spirit, she ascended from cold caller to stockbroker. She became the only Black woman to do so at her firm. Her years spent trading frantically led to a thrilling rich life. 

"Whatever the reason, here I was, the only female in a sea of men." ~ 43%

Times have not changed much. Brokerage firms are still majority white male brokers. Females are few and far between in the business. However, it took damn near half the book to reach the main point. I won't say everything to this point was irrelevant but the title and synopsis led readers to believe this is the story of a Black woman on Wall Street. Yet we don't even reach this point until halfway through this rags-to-riches story.

Cin held nothing back, from not passing a series exam by three measly points to the drugs and alcohol, lavish parties and shopping sprees. Her story is entertaining and at times motivating. I just wish it focused more on the Wall Street part.

Happy Early Pub Day, Cin Fabré! Wolf Hustle will be available Tuesday, September 20.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: Wolf Hustle
Author: Cin Fabré
Published: September 2022
Pages: 320
Edition: Galley
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤

Super Series Sunday

(Knockemout #1 ~ Noodle Shop #1 ~ We Were Liars #0 ~ Michael Bennett #14) 

Super Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Binge read installments of a series.
• Share your review/recommendations below.
• Include the titles, authors and series names.

My 1st Super Series Sunday pick is Things We Never Got Over, the first book in the Knockemout series by Lucy Score. Bearded bad boy Knox prefers to be alone with his basset hound. He doesn't tolerate drama until a stranded runaway bride named Naomi blows into town to rescue her estranged twin. Tricked by the evil twin, Tina steals Naomi's car and cash, leaving her with an 11-year-old niece Naomi didn't know she had. Not liking drama, Knox helps Naomi so he can return to a peaceful life. I have never heard of this author before browsing through Kindle Unlimited library. It has over 145,000 ratings with an average of 4⭐️ so I downloaded. Best impulse read ever! Almost 600 pages of goodness read in 3 days! I am in love with the characters, the author's writing style and the grown chick lit story. This novel is the literary version of the heart eyes emoji with all the feels it gives readers! 😍

My 2nd Super Series Sunday pick is Death by Dumpling, the first book in the Noodle Shop series by Vivien Chien. Yes, I am reading out of order! This is the beginning of the Ho-Lee Noodle House, where the Chinese food is literally to die for. The restaurant's property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead after a delivery of dumplings. Now the whole family restaurant is under suspicion for murder. It is a funny cozy mystery that pairs well with Chinese takeout and a weekend inside.

My 3rd Super Series Sunday pick is Family of Liars, the prequel to We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. We are back to another summer, another generation, more secrets that will haunt for decades to come. Put testosterone, entitlement, cold beer and an addicted heiress together and it's one helluva twisted story that I could not put down. I read nonstop, frantically turning the ePages! This novel proves the ocean is hungry and when it comes to the Sinclair family, they were clearly always liars. 

My 4th Super Series Sunday pick is Shattered, the 14th book in the Detective Michael Bennett series by James Patterson and James O. Born. NYPD homicide investigator Michael Bennett and top FBI abduction specialist Emily Parker have a history. So when she is found strangled, Bennett leaves his new bride and familiar family chaos to find the killer. There was nothing thrilling about this latest book of the series. It was as if the authors had a contractual obligation to fill and just turned in anything. Do better for Bennett!

Title: Things We Never Got Over

Author: Lucy Score

Published: January 2022

Pages: 570

Edition: eBook

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

Title: Death by Dumpling

Author: Vivien Chien

Published: March 2018

Pages: 331

Edition: eBook

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤

Title: Family of Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Published: May 2022

Pages: 279

Edition: eBook

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

Title: Shattered

Author: James Patterson and James O. Born

Published: July 2022

Pages: 351

Edition: eBook

Challenge: Keeping Up with Patterson

Rating: 🖤 

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"If you draw a map of our family history, you might start it off with my dad, young, fat, and handsome, eighteen-year-old Eddie Ramirez, plotting to get with my moms, who was dark-skinned, small and freckled, long black curly hair. Freshly turned seventeen. Her name is Dolores. And you can probably start it off in Brooklyn."

~ What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez