Jubilee is a story of a young woman’s suffering and abuse, and also of redemption and reflection that showcases the capacity to love and heal. It is a very well-written and captivating book, although sometimes uncomfortable to read about the sadness and turmoils. 

Thank you NetGalley for this e-arc.

Are you looking for a book that's going to make you cry? Because that's this book. You think from the synopsis that this is just a mystery book, maybe some kind of thriller, it's very vague on that topic, but really it just was sad and made me hysterically cry and honestly is one of those books that maybe they should have a trigger warning on for the harsh topics discussed in the story. Does that make it a bad book? Absolutely not. It's just intensely emotional and upsetting at times. But the silver lining is that you know the character made it out on the other end, alright, but shaken.

Told in alternating chapters of before and with, and occasionally letters to and after Jubilee, this story is about a young woman named Bianca who after a suicide attempt and some kind of horrible trauma causing her to bleed down her legs, finds herself with her dog and her baby doll Jubilee, at her brothers house with him and his husband. Very confused at why she's so hysterical, he's desperate to help her, and calls their mother over to help. She then finds herself in the hospital, crying for her baby, Jubilee.

And this begins an emotional journey of finding yourself and living your life after trauma, and hard memories of an abusive boyfriend, and lost pregnancies. Bianca has always wanted someone to love her, but has had a hard time finding that without getting hard love instead. An abusive and alcoholic father who turned his life around a little bit too late, a mother who refused to accept things that were happening in front of her eyes, and a brother who gets angry basically because he can't control how she feels about her now ex boyfriend. 

If you're really affected by story telling including rape, lost pregnancies, and suicide attempts, than this might not be the book for you. That being said, I did get through the book and come out on the other side, but I did cry for a bit there. That's just the kind of book it is, though. It was amazing and emotional and just so much more than I ever expected it could be. It's a story of feminism, and continuing to live after immense trauma, even when you don't think you can. I'm really glad I got to check this book out, even though it was hard at times, and I think that's how it's going to be for a lot of people to read. 
 
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

got this one last October from NetGalley and I haven’t seen much of this in the bookstagram community. 
It took me sometime for me to read it and wonder why I did not read it sooner.

SUMMARY
One night, Bianca (Bee) appears at her brother’s house with Jubilee, dressed and buckled into car seat.  Bee takes care of her, feeds her, bathes her, carries her and puts her to sleep. Jubilee is a doll.  The story in alternating point of views - Before Jubilee shows her struggles with high school sweetheart Gabe and the things they went thru that leads to the present with Jubilee. With Jubilee,  Bee with her new love, Joshua, who helps her in coping and  unearthing her trauma while risking  the stability he sets with his little family. 

THOUGHTS
This is not an easy and happy read as it discusses love, loss, abuse, trauma and mental illness but it is such a beautiful story. It is told in two timelines - Before Jubilee and With Jubilee and it depicts what happened  to Bee and why she acts that way.  It’s a long and hard process when dealing with trauma and each of us has their own coping mechanism. Some might breeze through it but in Bee’s case, it takes lots of courage,  deep understanding, acceptance and unconditional love on her part and her loved ones. There are hard parts in the story and  there are some characters I  want to know more, but it is such a moving and riveting story that makes you symphatize with the main characters and feel their heartaches, losses, frustrations, fears and their being human.

Thank you Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest view.

I am a huge fan of Givhan’s poetry. She’s a rockstar poet. And I think she brings her beautiful poetic insights here. That said, I’m not sure they’re as effective in this prose as in her poems. It feels like the poetic moments slow down the movement of the story, and have us looking through a mirror instead of directly interacting with the characters as much as we could be. The premise and occasion fascinates me, and the elements are all there, I just find the pacing a little too slow for my taste. That said, I don't read much literary fiction these days, so this very well could just be on me. I want a little more to propel Bianca through this story—more outside force or something pushing her to make choices. Still, a good read, and I definitely, definitely recommend folks check out her other books.

Have you ever seen Lars and the Real Girl? It’s about this guy who believes a life sized doll is actually his girlfriend. It’s been several years since I saw the movie but I remember liking it. It took more of a comedic approach on the topic but this serious truth was clear: The doll served as a coping mechanism for Lars. 

Jubilee is similar to Lars’ girlfriend. She is a doll and she is keeping Bianca afloat. Bianca needs her, and no one knows how long that need will exist, but she genuinely believes that Jubilee is her daughter. We, the readers, know that something devastating has happened to Bianca, but we don’t know what that is at first. We simply observe her leading a relatively normal life, with this one exception, and then we get glimpses of the past that brought her here.

Aside from the similar belief about a doll, these two stories have very little in common. Jubilee is a heavy book that includes content that could be extremely triggering for some readers. It is brimming with poignant passages that made my heart ache relentlessly. It is a tragic tale, yet never pessimistic, promising the possibility of something that resembles healing with every turning page. Jennifer Givhan explored the impact of trauma beautifully throughout Bianca’s painful story. 

While I never disliked the book, I did find it a little difficult to feel invested in initially. I’m glad I didn’t let that deter me from pushing through, as it was worth every second devoted to it and every tear I shed. 

Jubilee is literary fiction with dark, distressing themes. I know it won’t be for every reader, but it’s currently an underrated gem that deserves a bigger audience. I hope it will get all of the attention and love that it deserves. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my digital review copy.

Well that was a punch in the gut and then a hug (that I needed bc I'm just wrung out with emotion). Water cleanses and gives life but also destroys and takes life. I thought about that throughout the book; along with the snippets of poems and holding my breath as to what really happened to Bianca and Jubilee. What a heartbreakingly beautiful journey.

Bianca is a naïve young girl, who has a set view of the world, and challenges it when it doesn’t mean her expectations. I confess that I didn’t like her as a character, but she still went through an incredibly traumatic time, and the story that follows does that time justice. When she finally moves on from someone she never should have been with, we get an outsider’s look into what is happening with Bianca, how easy it would be to dismiss her, and the power of sticking by someone in their worst of times.

For me, I accept that I don’t really care for Bianca. She is merely a child, stuck in an impossible position, going through things she isn’t ready to handle. What she goes through is hard at any age. She’s not prepared to cope with what is going on, and she doesn’t have the right support to help her cope either. With Josh, I felt the writing was sloppy. I think his reaction and insight into what Bianca was going through either glossed over things or raced through them. It all summed up too neatly for me. But just because this book wasn’t the right fit for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be the right for others. It’s a heavy book and an emotional read, and I’m grateful Blackstone Publishing sent this along.

A beautiful haunting story that I won't soon forget. I loved the writing. Felt for the characters. A hard to read novel that brought tears to my eyes. Highly recommend this one

How far and to what lengths can you go to survive trauma and still come out on the other side has a whole and positive human being? A poignant story of a young woman’s suffering and abuse and her amazing tale of redemption and reflection. A wonderful emotional story of one family’s capacity to love and heal. Great story.
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy, thoroughly enjoyed it.

First the bad: I was very tempted to give this 3 stars because of the writing in many places. I had the advance reader's copy, so hopefully the published version clears up a lot of the confusing parts. I don't mind poetic, beautiful language (being a huge James Lee Burke fan), but there are so many instances where it was so over the top and flew right over my head. I had to just try to ignore the parts that made no sense to me. Also, I enjoy literary references as much as the next gal, but there are way too many here. Quote Dickinson all day long and I'll love it, but add in a million other authors, singers, lyrics, poets...and none of them will be able to resonate because it is too crowded. (Except Emily...she always resonates.)
That being said, I still gave 4 stars because despite all my frustrations ^, I loved (or loved to hate) all the characters. I loved the story. I mean, a seemingly sane person thinks her doll is real...what's not intriguing about that? I still have unanswered questions...about Bianca's father's death (and life) and her mother. And Lilly gets so much told about her, but only makes a couple appearances really.
All in all, a consuming novel.

Jubilee was quite a surprise for me. One of my Goodreads friends read it, raved about it, and I was convinced. Once again this friend did not steer me wrong. When Bianca arrives at her brother’s house, he and his partner immediately know something is terribly wrong with Bee. Baby Jubilee in tow, Bee is feverish and quite ill. A trip to the hospital helps her heal physically, but Bianca has a long way to go to heal mentally and emotionally. Told in alternating chapters of before and after, we begin to know Bee, and feel for her as we experience her trauma. I loved the mingling of Spanish and English. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader.

I liked it a little, it wasn't entretaining for me, it was more like a fast reading although I got bored in some point of this book, and  I didn't wanted to continue, but I did it and I just liked that it just finished, I think it wasn't my book.

I went into Jubilee blind with the only knowledge of the cover being gorgeous. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I ended up loving this book. 

The story is about Bianca being a devoted mother to her beautiful baby girl Jubilee. The only thing is that Jubilee is actually a doll. (I went into this not reading the synopsis so this is not a spoiler however I was actually surprised by this reveal in the first chapter). It’s told in alternating chapters of Bianca’s past, “Before Jubilee” and “During Jubilee”. We learn about Bianca’s traumatic past and the path that led her to Jubilee. The during Jubilee chapters are current where Bianca meets Joshua and they fall in love. I’m not going to give anymore on the story but I thought the story was absolutely heart breaking but beautiful.
Jubilee is a story of mental illness, love, loss, strength, and hope. I was completely invested from the very beginning to the end. Bianca’s pain is just so raw and it felt absolutely real. My heart hurt for her and this book actually made me cry. 

Now the only thing that stopped me from giving it 5 stars was that the writing in the beginning didn’t have the greatest flow. It felt disjointed and a little arbitrary. For example, I felt that it would hone in one a specific detail and go off on a tangent about it. There was a lot of telling rather than showing when I just wanted to hear about the story. However towards the middle, I’m not sure if I just got used to it or if the writing improved but I found the writing beautiful and poetic. This book actually had me in tears at one point. My rating is a strong 4.5 and I plan on buying this book for my collection. I will be thinking about Bianca's story for a very long time to come. 

Trigger warnings: abuse, suicide, miscarriages

Thanks so much to Netgalley and to Blackstone publishing for advanced copy of this book, it is now available!

CW: Infant loss, abuse and sexual assault

I was drawn into this book only 20 pages in as I had to know what happened to Bee. When I finished the book, I really needed to sit with it a bit. This psychological drama was incredibly heartbreaking throughout. It's a story about love, loss, abuse, trauma and mental health. You know how you can read a book and it just stays with you... well this is that type of book.

It was so interesting how the author developed the story and went back and forth between "Before Jubilee" and "With Jubilee" until the complete picture of what happened came into view. Although this book was difficult to read at times (due to the sensitivity of the story) I could not put it down. This emotional and gripping story was so well done! I highly recommend picking up this book!

Thank you to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC e-copy.

I really loved this book. It was fascinating, sad, happy, and beautiful. I was apprehensive at first since it sounded so sad - a young woman comes home, bleeding and traumatized, believing that a doll is her newborn child?  Ooph. 
However, the moment I started the book I felt the recognition of something special falling into place. This book is special and if it doesn't win awards I will be throwing a huge fuss. 
The author is a poet and it comes through in this novel. 
Bianca is so real, as is her childhood home and neighborhood.  
I was amazed how the author wrote on this thin line between delusion, trauma, and mental health, without messing it up or making one more important than the other.  I was nervous that Bianca's state of mind could be trivialized or made into a stereotype of "the crazy girl" and decisions being made for her without her input. The treatment of her mental health in the novel was so well done, I loved it.  
The book is definitely a heartbreaker but so worth it!

𝐒𝐡𝐞’𝐝 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟, 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞. 𝐒𝐡𝐞’𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲.

Jubilee is Bianca Vogelsang’s baby, who she watches over with fierce devotion and tenderness. She is a good, loving mother to her little one, the only problem is that Jubilee is a doll. When she shows up at her brother’s house in Santa Anna, she is a broken twenty-year-old who was meant to be away at University entering her junior year, writing her own poetry collection. Instead, on this dark night, she has returned, barely a sketch of her former self, bleeding, looking more like the walking dead. Worse, as she stands at the doorstep she has a baby bundled in her arm, as he hugs her, Matty feels she is burning up with a fever. Convincing her to let him hold the baby as he leads her into the sanctuary of his house, he realizes immediately the baby isn’t alive nor even human, it’s a doll. Matty isn’t able to make sense of what is happening, in her weakened state she can’t form the words to answer him, and Matty calls for reinforcement- their mother. Once there she knows they must rush Bianca to the hospital where they discover beyond her wrecked body, her mind has lost it’s grasp. Does she really believe her doll is a real baby?

The novel flashes back to the early days of Bianca “Bee” and high school sweetheart Gabe’s relationship. Moving too fast, getting caught up in bigger secrets, she makes a painful decision for the greater good at fifteen to later be betrayed by him when he leaves for college. With Katrina their story becomes a love triangle, with ties Gabe cannot easily sever and Bee always left waiting in the wings. Gabe knows how to “handle” his women when they act out of line and with her resentment and painful memories of the choices she made, Bee is quick to challenge him. But his touch always soothes the wounds. Still, they stick to each other, despite Gabe’s habit of coming and going as he pleases. When she needs him most after a terrible loss, he is with Katrina, who has everything she had to sacrifice. Things spiral out of control until we get to the bottom of the trauma and the reason someone as intelligent, and gifted as Bianca is now clinging to a baby doll.

In present time: Bianca is living with her brother Matty and his partner Handro, enrolled in college classes and attending therapy sessions entrusting Matty with Jubliee’s care. She has met someone in her Mexican Art History class, Joshua Walker. Joshua knows all too well about hardship having grown up in the foster system, even separated from his sister Olivia. When she got tangled up in the criminal justice system he moved the moon and stars to become the main caregiver to his nephew Jayden, who for all intents and purposes is his son. When he invites Bianca, a gorgeous, articulate, intelligent woman (who can carry on a conversation about Frida Kahlo and surrealism) on a date and into he and Jayden’s structured, safe lives he doesn’t yet know about her delusion. He learns soon enough it isn’t a joke nor a test, familiar with troubled youth and patients exhibiting early signs of psychosis, he is on high alert. First and foremost in his mind is Jayden’s safety, but beyond the doll, she seems so normal, certainly doesn’t appear to be harboring dark thoughts. What has he gotten himself into? Why can’t he walk away? What is this going to mean down the road for his little family of two?

Despite his misgivings, he and Bianca fall in love and just like her family at the advice of Bee’s doctor, allows her to work through her pain by way of Jubilee. But will she ever be able to detach from this crack in reality? What is at the heart of it? What exactly happened between she and Gabe? Joshua and Gabe are polar opposites, what violence occurred to make Gabe so repellant? Is he welcoming ruin into the only stable home Jayden has?

I went between 3 and 4 stars rating this novel, because at times I struggled with the flow of past to present, but it is an important storyline simply for the explosive relationship versus the healing one with Josh. The psychological break that is vital to Bianca coping with a bottomless loss is beautifully explored in this story. As is the fear other’s have when someone exhibits mental illness because most romantic interests would run the other way in terror. The abuses, the returning willingly to a cycle of degradation, how a childhood lacking made the things Gabe could give her so irresistible, blinding her to the uglier side. Then the sacrifice she made, far too naïve to understand the repercussions and pain that would follow. Adults get caught in the same web, having an intimate history with someone makes it hard to break free, it’s far more intensified in a teenager who lacks the experience that comes with maturity. Unlike privileged girls, for Bianca poverty is at the heart of her lack of choices, girls like her face consequences those with means never will. In the beginning, how she is defined and treated by others (Gabe’s family in particular) when the word ‘gringa’ is attributed to her, because her father is white and not Mexican like her mother, exposes another cross she has to bear. Laughter from his family when she mentions being a writer, her dearest dream, and that the true choice, in their minds is wife or career and nothing in between. This isn’t exactly support, especially for a young woman who uses poetry to keep from drowning. Writing, her one salvation.

In the betrayal of trust between she and Gabe, Katrina open fresh hurts with words like daggers about the private shamefulness of Bianca’s decision when she was fifteen, shedding light on how Bee feels about herself and the ways others judge her. As she says, girls like her are ditchwater girls… they must save themselves, and she tries, from that moment on her brother’s doorstep. It will take mountains of courage to recover.

There isn’t much room for innocence, but will she have a chance for a fresh start, a rebirth of sorts? Could Joshua and his sweet, funny son Jayden be a balm?

Publication Date: October 6, 2020

Blackstone Publishing

This was a beautiful masterpiece. It was one of the most truly wonderful and heart wrenching stories I’ve ever read. Was a punch in the gut and I loved every bit of it. I usually have more to say in my reviews but this one left me rather breathless.

What a beautiful and haunting novel! The cliché "could not put this book down" gets thrown around a lot in reviews, but I literally could not put this book down and finished it in less than 24 hours. Do yourself a favor and pick Jubilee up now.

A sad and honest psychological character study about Bianca (Bee) and the doll that she believes is her daughter. The concept of this book was really intriguing, but I do think the execution could have been better. The plot and character development was slowed down significantly by the literary illusions and constant references/quotes, so portions of this book were a little harder for me to get through. However, the finish was very strong so I ended up giving this 4 stars. I loved that this book focused so heavily on Chicano/Mexican-American culture -- and the toxic, dusty Southern California environment plays heavily into the tone of the story. Bee is a character that is easy to get frustrated by, but she is also so innocent and it is heart-warming to see her grow a lot over the course of the novel. I think this is definitely worth picking up, especially if you are interested in family dramas, parental issues, and maternal love. Maybe this is a *spoiler* but I feel it is important to address the trigger warning to readers who may be sensitive to infant loss.

This is going to be one of those books that sticks with me for awhile. The story while interesting in premise and promise dragged in certain parts for me because there was a lot of tell and not show segments, but also because I found myself drawn more to the interactions between certain characters and less so between others. However, even in the segments that didn't draw me in as readily there were moments of beautiful prose. Bianca has a unique and poetic outlook on the world that helps to bolster an almost dreamlike quality to the text. However, I doubt that is what is going to stick with me. What is going to stick with me is a discussion surrounding mental health that could be had with this book. People with mental health aren't any less deserving of love, but it does take a specific person with a whole lot of patience to give them what they need. They need support, space, and time to heal, but then also it's important to remember that you can never 100% know what another person has gone through or is going through. This book is depressing on the surface level, has interesting psychological aspects in the middle, and at its very base is about hope and healing. It's complex and wavers back and forth between being beautiful and being ugly, but ultimately that's life isn't it?

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this novel.