Beautiful and haunting, I was left thinking about this book long after reading. I loved the characters and the writing style.

This story is inspired by Little Women. This story is about love and grief. It was very engaging and beautifully written

A story about a mom navigating through her grief after losing her daughter. As a mom to 3 girls I don’t think I could ever imagine going through that! 2 realities going back and forth.

When Jasmine Blooms by Tif Marcelo is a book that reads like a comfortable, warm hug.

Celine is an influencer wife and mother reeling from the death of one of her daughters. She wakes up one day in a 'what-if' parallel world where everyone she loves is still in her life just not quite the way she hopes.

A reimagining of Little Women, full of heart, second chances and healing, When Jasmine Blooms explores motherhood and grief in a way that made me look at the world both within and outside the book from different perspectives. My only gripe was that the ending felt rushed.

Thank you @netgalley for a digital advance copy to read and review.

Like the novel Little Women, a family with four daughters, one dies. This book is told from the mother’s perspective, with an alternate reality where her daughter is still alive. I enjoyed the writing and felt a lot of empathy for Celine. I would recommend this for anyone looking for a book about loss and learning to move past it.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

I found myself engulfed in a whirlwind of heartbreak and despair. The story of Celine's devastating loss and her desperate struggle to escape the suffocating grip of grief tore at my soul with every passing moment.

From the haunting emptiness left in the wake of her daughter Libby's passing to the overwhelming pressure to maintain a facade of strength and resilience, Celine's pain was achingly palpable. Marcelo's evocative prose laid bare the raw, searing agony of a mother robbed of her child, leaving me shattered and bereft in its wake. As a mother, I can only imagine the pain and agony she must have felt.

As Celine struggled with the impossible ultimatum presented by her family—a choice between confronting her grief head-on or risking the loss of what little remained of her fractured family—I felt her anguish echo within the depths of my own heart. The weight of her decision, the fear of facing her deepest wounds, and the crushing loneliness of her shattered reality weighed heavily upon me, threatening to suffocate me with their unrelenting sorrow.

But it was the cruel twist of fate that thrust Celine into a parallel world—a world where her long-lost daughter was miraculously returned to her—that truly shattered me. The bittersweet reunion with Libby, tainted by the knowledge that it was all too fleeting, left me trembling with aching despair. The jagged edges of hope and despair tore at my heart, leaving me gasping for breath in their wake.

As Celine navigated the treacherous terrain of her dual existence, confronting the demons that haunted her real life and grappling with the painful truth that not even a mother's love could mend all wounds, I felt my heart splintering into a million irreparable pieces. Marcelo's poignant exploration of grief and loss left me shattered, yet strangely hopeful, in its wake.

In the end, "When Jasmine Blooms" is a hauntingly beautiful ode to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable pain. Through Celine's harrowing journey of self-discovery and healing, Marcelo reminds us all that even amidst the darkness, there is still a glimmer of light waiting to be found.

Celine feels confident in her career, until she overhears some women questioning her sincerity. A confrontation with her family soon after leaves her wondering—what if she’d taken another path decades ago?

Celine is sure that she’s a mother first, and that her career always comes second. When her family collectively questions that, her world and self-image is completely rocked. She suddenly finds herself in the small town where it all started, but this Celine made completely different choices. Her children are not her own, and the love of her life—her real-life husband of decades—will barely even speak to her.

While the message to be learned is pretty clear from the beginning of the book, the presentation felt new and insightful. It was heartwarming to read about Celine trying to bring the best of herself from both versions of reality to try and make it all better for past/alternative Celine, and hopefully get original Celine back to the life she now acknowledges that she misses and needs to work to set right.

The book earned 4 out of 5 stars, and it was so entertaining to watch the slight variations the people in Celine’s life had based on how they responded to the different Celine. How many lives are just that little bit different because of who they knew or interacted with regularly? This was a fun contemporary fiction story with a non-judgmental look at the choices made in life and lifestyle.

After Celine loses her daughter Libby, her mind is consumed with a million what-if's. After an accident, she wakes up in an alternate reality (love that trope).

I really enjoyed this book. The plot moved quickly and emotionally. I think every person has asked themself what-if? at least once. This story answers that question for Celine. Super great book, would highly recommend!

When I saw that this was a reimagining of Little Women, I was intrigued. I thought that the "what if my life wasn't this way" storyline was interesting and the exploration of a mother's grief was heartbreaking. But I have read a few books with this similar trope and this one was not as memorable as others. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I am a fan of Tif Marcelo. I am a fan of Little Women. So, I was primed to enjoy When Jasmine Blooms. Ultimately, this book is a meditation on grief, which may not be every reader's cup of tea.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

This was a deeply moving story about a family after loss. The mc is a mom, an influencer. She rose up after she was a mother struggling to juggle her life and still nurture and be there for her kids.

But now her kids are grown and, in the midst of their lives, one of them suddenly is gone to a very fast-moving illness. As you can imagine, the mother (or MC) isn't handling it well (or at all).

I did this one as an audiobook and I found the narrator engaging and well-paced. I was completely drawn in to the story, possibly it helping that it was around the holidays and I, too, was surrounded by family. It was a well written, sad story and does a good job of taking the reader through the stages of loss and a family grieving.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Beautifully told, this is a story of grief and family. Of food and connection. of family and hope. I highly recommend for others who enjoy reading family stories as I do.

This book was ok. It wasn't a favorite for me as this is a grief novel, this should be about the grief and moving through that feelings. However I felt like the author just wanted to be able to write a book kind of like "Little Women" or ust wanted to be able to say she had a re-telling. Not that this is a retelling of the Novel. I didn't enjoy this but I think I was expecting something a little different and this just didn't work for me.

The writing is wonderful, descriptive and easy to follow.

It’s a joggle, as a life coach, Celine is summoned to walk her talk during the most trying time of her life. She is then enthralled in a magical realism in search for closure, healing, self-forgiveness, acceptance; or probably all of them.

Sampaguita (jasmine), ensaymada (yum!!), & the family dynamics is very familiar to my Pinoy heart. This is my first @tifmarcelo read & the Filipino vibes was so on point, the novela seems like it was made for a teleserye in the Philippines.

A very good read for Mother’s Day. Not because it’s giving tribute to Mums, but actually depicts the real challenges & the honest self-righteousness that most, if not all, mothers experience in one way or another. Paralleled with THE famous Little Women, the core of the plot is family. I shall re-read this probably 10 years from now when my Little Rainbow 🌈 becomes a teen, there are just so much notes to take down on parenting!

For a women's fiction read it lacked some aspects of women in a story full of women, so I'm giving a generous 3 ⭐s.

The story follows a mom & a bestselling author, Celine, at the point of grief at the loss of one of her daughters, Libby. Celine is of course successful woman with a shining social appearance who has worked through her life as an author in between helping her loving husband and supporting his job becoming a housewife while raising her lovely daughters. She is without a doubt a strong & capable woman who is having a hard time accepting the death of Libby so, she barriers herself in work to show others, even her family that everything is perfect.

Celine has this little obsession with the book 'The Little Women' inspired her journey to become an author and in this process of grief, we see some magical elements which is a kinda of psychological thing where she sees an alternative reality of her life she builds with her school sweetheart & Libby is actually a tenant lives in her current house which makes her mind so messed up. For the most part, this book talks about motherhood, the bond between a mother and her daughters & her aspiration as an author.

This book took me by surprise with its promise but as soon as I got into the story it failed to deliver what I was expecting. The writing was just okay for me as I was hoping to get more heart-hitting, emotional time with the grief. But unfortunately, the book didn't go there for me. And the imagining part was a little insane for my taste. I think the story could have added more depth to the family as a whole aspect & could have more on the relationship between husband & wife better. The Little Women's influence was good but I didn't see much of it in the story other than mentioning that as the favourite book several times. And some things were quite a bit draggy. But I loved the representation of migraines, depression and anxiety quite a bit. I think unfortunately this one was not for me.

The premise of this novel is certainly unique. Being a Little Women reimagining, When Jasmine Blooms centers Marmee through the character of Celine Lakad-Frasier, a mother on a journey through suffering and denial after the death of her third daughter Libby. How, the author wonders, would Marmee have coped after the loss of her child? While this novel isn't a traditional retelling—the setting veers far from Little Women's own, and even the characters are their own people, despite the few aspects of their personalities Marcelo chose to retain from the original—it explores motherhood and grief in a way that constantly reminds the reader to look at the world, both within and outside the book, from different perspectives.

Though it may work well as the abovementioned exploration of certain themes, the novel falls flat in several other areas. None of the characters are very compelling, with me rooting for Celine to move past her grief only to see the stagnancy of the narrative end at last. The rut that the plot seemed to have fallen into may have accurately reflected the rut Celine had been in for years because of Libby's loss, but it made for a difficult read to get through. There was rather more telling than showing, with repetitive writing attempting to hammer in details that readers could have understood naturally, without the reinforcement. I like the idea behind this novel a lot, but its execution did not move me as much as I had hoped.

3.5 stars

First, I want to dispel the notion that this book is reminiscent of the movie “Sliding Doors” — though we do see two different paths for Celine’s life, the more prominent comparison (to me, anyway) is to The Wizard of Oz. *Mini Spoiler* When Celine awakens in her “other” life, her friends and family are still a part of her life, just in different roles or with a different relationship. For example, a real-life daughter is now an employee, a friendly relationship with a real-life neighbor now a contentious one. *Mini Spoiler over*

Second, though Marcelo wrote this out of her own admiration for Marmee which Celine shares, I found this to take after Little Women in an over-the-top way, like Marcelo was trying too hard to make them similar. Celine’s daughters are even named similarly — Mae, MJ (the J is for Josephine), Libby (actually Elizabeth and Elizabeth in the other life), and Amelia. Amelia’s husband is named Theo. The neighbor is Mr. Loren, and he gifts Libby the piano. Amy travels with a great aunt. And more! I just felt beaten over the head with the Little Women references.

But okay, the actual story? I liked it. I think we’ve all wondered “what if” and imagined a slightly different life that hinges on one choice. What would be the same? What would be different? And, most importantly, would I be willing to forego this one thing to have that one thing? I liked the characters in both lives. I’ve seen Celine reviewed as an unlikeable character but I didn’t find her to be so. I think many mothers would relate to Celine, their intentions often coming off as overbearing or as having little faith in the child’s independence, words translated as harsh and mannerisms interpreted as cold. For all Celine’s success as an author and life coach, she was terrible at communicating with her family. That didn’t make her unlikeable to me. I was more angry with her family for that intervention and ultimatum. I applaud their suggestion of therapy but I don’t think it’s fair to dictate how a person’s grief should manifest or be expressed.

Finally, I thought the ending was a bit abrupt. (There’s no way for me to expound on that without spoilers.) And I know what lesson Celine was meant to learn, but it wasn’t made explicit. I was just a little underwhelmed. Overall I enjoyed this book once I got into it, and I think it would be good for book clubs as there’s a lot of potential for discussion.

I have lost a daughter and this book was very heartbreaking for me. It was very good though, and beautifully written. I liked the idea of an alternate reality.
Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I loved it. It felt like a light take on dealing with grief and I felt incredibly connected to the characters. I also loved seeing the nods to Little Women.