Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour

20 reviews

ohmygoshtosh's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, and Violence

littki's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, and Grief

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Alcohol

Minor: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Blood, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

garciaga's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book was biting more than it could chew. It tries to explore a relationship through time, how you can find someone that is good for you and yet, not be the right moment. And we sort of get to see it, but it doesn't have much impact since the characters are so underdeveloped. Emilie just lets life take her places, not really taking any decisions (not even when finally finding her "life passiom", it kind of just falls on her lap); and Sara has such a horrible beginning, but from then on things just work out perfectly everytime, and there are barely any consequences.
Maybe the problem is that I was expecting a different kind of book. I was also not a fan of the love story, since it takes them half the book to actually meet and then they fall in love instantly. Where's the pinning? Where's the yearning? Where's the idea that love is something that you build and strengthen through time?
Anyway. At least the writing style was beautiful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction and Drug use

Moderate: Sexual violence and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer

cheye13's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Something about this read a little young to me. Maybe it was because we started with one of the characters at 14, maybe because we don't get the full "reveal" of Sara's home life until so late, I'm not quite sure.

And it's not strictly a romance, so it makes sense the story focused more on other elements of both women's journeys, but I didn't feel a connection between them at all. It read as though they were the only queer women in the vicinity (i.e. in the book), so they may as well date.

It was a decent story, and very well written, but I didn't find that it offered anything exceptionally unique.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, and Grief

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Drug abuse, Sexual content, and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer, Pedophilia, Blood, and Alcohol

two underage characters perform sex acts for money mostly off-page; an underage girl seriously considers sex work for a time

smlemire's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"So this was how it felt-to be dealt a blow, to pause, to keep going in spite of it. Not to start over but to continue."

As I sit here, it's just before 6 am. I finished Yerba Buena last night around 11 and went to bed knowing I wasn't done experiencing the book for the first time yet. I have so much to say and yet everything I'm going to say I know Nina Lacour already knows.

Nina always makes me feel some type of way about Los Angeles, Iike it's my home I've been away from for a decade, and like l'm finally coming home and everything is different and better yet somehow the same and worse. And I've never even been to California before. She makes me miss what I've never had, long for what I've never dreamed of. And the way she writes sadness - the sadness of love, of loss, and the way that people come and go from your life - is so real that it makes you ache inside and keeps you hooked, turning the pages as you wait for the resolution.

I was hooked from the dedication page, as always. The way that Nina can bring you in to a story so abruptly and yet you instantly feel as though you know everything about these characters. I am always left in awe.

My favorite book has been Everything Leads to You since the moment I first picked it up. That book shaped my life in such wonderous and powerful ways that I can't explain, so here's just one; Emi's search for a green couch within the book shaped my own hunt for a sofa this time last year as the centerpiece of the living room in my first apartment, as I wanted to bring part of the book to life in front of me, to be comforted by the presence of the pureness of green and all it represents. Here, in Yerba Buena, the green motif returns; subtle at first, but if you come into it thinking of Lacour's green couch as I always do, you'll notice it right away. Green is life, it's vibrance, it's comfort and strength and the feeling of a hug wrapped around you at the end of a back-breaking sob. I feel lucky to share my world with Nina Lacour's green.

I desire to know this book like the back of my hand, the way I haven't wanted to know a book since Everything Leads to You. I will return to Yerba Buena again when the time is right, as Lacour says, each return a miracle.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Alcohol

Minor: Medical content and Injury/Injury detail

yayathegreat38's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer and Infidelity

bencaroline's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Drug use, Blood, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, War, and Injury/Injury detail

indydc's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Grief, and Alcohol

Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer

andreadelo's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Simple yet reflective. I picked this up expecting mainly a romance but found two stories about the difficulties of finding oneself. I liked the bittersweet moral but sometimes the book felt a bit too on the nose with its metaphors, sometimes explaining  instead of describing. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Trafficking

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

bootsmom3's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Cancer