Mediocre - it could have been better.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. While, I appreciated the alternating chapters between mother and daughter, I had anticipated a different type of narrative. I was not drawn to the storyline of Flores, it had no depth and felt disconnected as if it was it's own book. I thought Miss Paula's story was more engaging and it needed to connect/parallel with Flores but unfortunately it did not - it didn't feel like a true mother/daughter story. I think it would have been better if the author wrote more about 1) Peruvian culture and each characters connection to the country and 2) tied the characters with their differing relationship with Martin (the father).

Flores and Miss Paula is a beautiful, quiet story that explores the dynamics of a mother-and-daughter relationship. Three years ago, after a lengthy battle with cancer, Martin passed away leaving his wife, Miss Paula, and daughter Flores. The women are at a point where they just seem to exist in each other’s lives rather than sharing a life—even though they live together.
The ladies' work lives seem almost as dissatisfying as their personal lives as the book opens. Flores (known at work by her last name) works for an aquarium business which may be on the brink of some serious interoffice drama. Miss Paula on the other hand is working for a discount chain where she may finally be recognized for her contributions to the store. Their world is turned upside down when the landlord of the apartment they’ve called home for decades notifies them that he is giving their apartment to one of his family members. Now Flores and Miss Paula must decide if they can continue to live together or if they’ve grown too far apart.
I enjoyed this book. It has a slow, relaxing pace, but I found myself drawn into the lives of the main characters. Melissa Rivero did a solid job in presenting the journey of both Flores and Miss Paula through alternating and unique POVs. Along the way, in addition to exploring the mother-daughter relationship, Rivero shares with readers the Peruvian culture and customs that impact these two characters, both pushing them apart and binding them tighter together.
Flores and Miss Paula will be released on December 5, 2023.
Thank you to Ecco and Netgalley for providing a review copy.

Great start to a book. It captured my attention from the beginning. We meet the mother and daughter who are still recovering from the loss of husband/father. We hear from both characters throughout the story which I enjoyed. One of the reasons I enjoyed this book were Flores and Miss Paula felt like real characters that you might meet at work, the store or the library. Their story was their own but one the reader can relate to through descriptions of their jobs, worry of the future and thinking about the past. There is a chasm in their relationship at the beginning and we begin to see that heal.

Being exposed to the Peruvian culture certainly added to the enjoyment and I do wish there had been a bit more of that in the story. I enjoyed this book and thank Netgalley for the chance to review.

Flores and her mother, Paula, have always had a contentious relationship. It's been even more so since their father/husband passed away 3 years ago. They still live in their Brooklyn apartment, where they've lived most of Flores' life. Now, both women are faced with life decisions as they must move to a new home. Additionally, each are facing work decisions that could impact their futures. As they begin to understand each other more as adults with their own dreams, empathy grows between them. Sweet story of a mother/ daughter relationship as it evolves into a more adult relationship of love and appreciation.

This was a fantastic read! It was a beautiful exploration of a complicated mother-daughter relationship, culture, generational expectations, grief, and healing. The framing made it really interesting, calling them by the names others called them but written from the perspective of a confessional diary.

Flores and Miss Paula by Melissa Rivero follows the story of a thirty something Flores and her mother Paula living in their Brooklyn apartment navigating their ways through life as they deal with grief following the death of their husband and father, Martin. Initially Flores and Paula didn’t have the best mother-daughter bond but as the story unfolds their relationship grows and eventually they reconcile.

This book portrays strong female characters and how they grief for their loss as each of them goes through different stages of their life.

I enjoyed many constituents of the book, like the mother-daughter relationship.

Riverio starts the story where both Flores and Paula can’t tolerate each other, they are always either bickering or fighting and not much on speaking terms even though they both know that they want the best for each other.

Paula is often worried that her daughter is overburdened with work and will end up being a loner whereas Flores is worried that her mother is falling for a married man and will wind up getting hurt. Flores was always closer to her father than she was with her mother which made their relationship trickier. But eventually they try to understand each other and overlook each other’s flaws.

This book has a slow-pacing to it which made it hard to follow at times. It has alternating POVs and I often found myself skimming through Flores parts and anticipated reading about Paula because her perspective felt more interesting.

Apart from the two main characters, the ancillary characters like the office workers who were a huge part of the story didn’t seem well developed as if their existence didn’t really matter much and rather felt like an interruption.

I found Rivero’s writing style to be okay but nothing to get excited about. Though I loved how she went back and forth between the two characters, the story was prolonged at times and often got boring.

I hoped to find some major plot twists especially after reading the blurb which mentions “ Flores discovers a note written in her mother’s handwriting: Perdóname si te falle. Recuerda que siempre te quise. (“Forgive me if I failed you. Remember that I always loved you.”) But what would Paula need forgiveness for?” but unfortunately the twists really didn’t shock me.

Annoyingly, I was never able to properly delve into the story as reading it felt like a chore.

To conclude, I think this book was aimed for a much older audience who can understand the emotions of the protagonists more vividly. Though this book does have its flaws I appreciated the ways the author captures the grief due to the passing away of a loved one.

This was my first book to read by this author but it won't be my last! This was a beautifully written novel that evokes so many emotions. Don't miss out on this one!

A sometimes witty, sometimes heartbreaking dual narrative of a mother and daughter trying to find common ground while coming to terms with the death of their husband/father.

A very tender and heartfelt novel about a Peruvian immigrant and her millennial daughter. Through out the book they have many battles but are finally able to find common ground. Life is really all about connecting the past and present. This book will make a great book club pick and the discussion would be endless.

Flores and Miss Paula
by Melissa Rivero
Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
Ecco
Women's Fiction
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
A wry, tender novel about a Peruvian immigrant mother and a millennial daughter who have one final chance to find common ground.
Mother/Daughter tale told in alternating voice. I really wish the daughter had spoken more about her inner feelings.
However, this is a great book and I fell in love with the characters and could relate to the gap in their relationship after the patriarch dies.
I highly recommend.
4 stars

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC. This book was a slow burn, but then catches you off guard with the emotional last act. It is a mother/daughter tale, told from their alternating perspectives. At first, their stories seem disconnected, but then you start to understand the links between them and how their histories led to their current struggles. The death of the family patriarch has left a gap between them, but also a sainthood that prevents them from understanding each other or their own lives. They have to focus on themselves to move forward and heal the relationships they still have. Some of the detail around the daughter's job did seem extraneous (and maybe autobiographical?), and I wish that the daughter's portion of the novel focused more on her inner life sometimes. I still highly recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher's for this Advanced Readers Copy of Flores and Miss Paula by Melissa Rivero!

This is a study of the mother/daughter relationship. Paula is the Peruvian immigrant mother and Flores is her thirty-something daughter. After the loss of Flores' father, they continue to live in the same apartment in Brooklyn but have little else in common. Flores is unhappy at work, a tech start-up, recently out of a serious relationship and in debt. Her mother works at a discount store and spends free time at the gym or spending time with Vicente, a married friend who wants more. I enjoyed Paula's insights, her grief at the loss of the future she had planned with her husband and her complicated relationship with motherhood. I found the story interesting and relatable.

It took some time to settle into this voicey novel, but once I did I fell hard for this mother and daughter, both as individuals and as a dyad. Warm, but not light, this book explores the importance of home and deftly brings a Brooklyn community to life.

This mother/daughter focused book switches points of view throughout. Ultimately, I did not finish this one. It felt similar to other novels and I just did not really connect with the main characters here.

This offers a thoughtful glimpse into the complexities of mother-daughter relationships but gets bogged down in Flores business relationships. I found myself skimming her parts and not caring about the ancillary characters there. I looked forward to Paula's parts more.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

FLORES AND MISS PAULA by Melissa Rivera follows a mother (Paula) and daughter (Flores) as they each navigate their daily lives while dealing with the grief of losing their husband and father respectively. 
 
This is a slower-paced book with alternating POV chapters of Flores and Paula. Flores works in an aquarium start-up that is having some financial troubles while Paula works at the local dollar store. With each chapter, we learn more about what each character does during or after work as well as what they are thinking about and how they are dealing with their grief. 
 
Flores was much closer to her father than she is to her mother, which seems to make things tricky since they both live together. The relationship between Flores and Paula is a very real portrayal of a mother-daughter duo that is struggling to get along. In fact, I saw glimpses of my own relationship with my mother. This dynamic is a relatable one, as I am sure many others can also say they are closer to one family member than another. 
 
Throughout FLORES AND MISS PAULA, we see how decisions impact each of their lives as well as how detrimental it is to their relationship that they aren’t speaking much to each other. Grief is a difficult emotion to go through, and it impacts everyone in a different way. This book provides a window into what it’s like dealing with grief when you aren’t speaking about it to others. I truly enjoyed getting to know Flores and Paula, and seeing how their relationship changes throughout the book. 
 
Flores is such a relational thirty-something working in a start-up environment. If you’ve ever worked at a start-up or have been employed with a large corporate company before, you’ll laugh at some of the BS that Flores goes through. There were many times when I thought back to specific times in my past jobs and could remember exactly how I was feeling when some of these things occurred (ie large dumb team morale meetings, the secrecy and curiosity of who’s getting fired, doing tasks not in your job description, etc). 
 
Overall, I found it very cathartic to read FLORES AND MISS PAULA, and if you’ve experienced grief within your family or friend group, reading this book might help. We do a disservice to ourselves when we don’t speak about our emotions and keep them locked up like secrets. 

Thanks to #NetGalley and #Ecco for the e-arc! FLORES AND MISS PAULA comes out 12/05/2023!

I thought I would fall into this novel, a story about life after loss, but I just couldn't get into it. While it has heart, the main characters, mother Paula, and daughter Monica, never came to life for me, nor did their story, their past, present, and future. Rather than a trajectory focused on them, their story kept being interrupted by side plots and characters that weren't fully developed.

This was such a sweet story about mother daughter duo Flores and Miss Paula. I appreciate how Rivero tenderly walks the characters through grief and joy so accurately and similarly to my own experience after losing my Dad. I thoroughly enjoyed and would gladly read another Rivero book.

Flores and Miss Paula is a sweet story that explores the separate, but intertwined, lives of a mother and her daughter after the loss of their beloved husband / father. Their lives are difficult and sad but each thrives professionally and emotionally by forcing themselves forward outside of their shattered comfort zones.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for the opportunity to read this ARC.