Reviews

The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom

sueotwell's review

3.0

I enjoyed parts of this book. The beginning drug on for me and was hard to keep up with the many names and relation to each other. I drug through that part and when I convinced myself to continue I started to enjoy the aspect of it and for the group of people this story was about (at least the middle portion of the book). I would never have finished this book had it not been a One Book One Community book club read and if a friend would not have encouraged me to continue reading it. I didn't have issue with the writing itself (I listened on audio book) but parts just drug out and I couldn't find the purpose for all of the dragging. I typically read for entertainment and this book was not written for that purpose so I had a hard time connecting to the story although I did get more understanding of that part of New Orleans and daily struggles for those people.
Overall this was just an ok book for me. Again I was able to finish it so that is a plus for me personally! I do think it was worth the read and the conversations it sparked during our book club discussion was great.

bookish_karin's review

4.0

This took me a while to work through, but persistence payed off. The start is slow. Almost painfully so. But the story unfurls and it all makes sense, why the first chapters are so critical.

lisettemarie's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Drug use

xtina114's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

sassieve's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

paperschemes's review

lockdown

dkragick's review

3.0

I just couldn't get vested in this one.

I lied. Finally finished. Caught a second wind near the end.

lilias's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

siobst's review

2.0

I’ll always think of this as my “just can’t get through it COVID-19 pandemic book”. So much less driving led to so much less audio book listening. It’s hard to say whether it was the book or the timing. There were very specific things I liked about this book. I enjoyed the narrator’s depiction of a favorite brother. I enjoyed thinking of the house as a character with a vital role in the family. But in general the theme of the yellow house only very loosely held the story together and it seemed to wander endlessly. I read it for a neighborhood book club that never really launched due to COVID. Glad to be moving on.

pasteli's review

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.75

This is a fantastic memoir and helped me to understand Katrina and it's consequences in a more neuanced way, as well as New Orleans outside of it's mythical portrait.