this was a big DNF I really tried to like it and I tried to keep going but I stopped about 40% of the way through. had a hard time following what was happening and it didn't keep my interest.

This is the first audiobook I have completed in a VERY long time, and I really enjoyed it! I received it as an arc from Netgalley but it was archived before I could finish it, luckily there was a copy from the online library that I was able to reserve. It took about two months for the book to come in but finally I was able to borrow it. I would love to get my hands on a finished copy because this is definitely one that I'd like to e-read in order to better connect the dots between the individual short stories. The author is so creative and the narrator did a great job of bringing the story to life. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book and look forward to seeing what will be next from this author!

I really enjoyed the stories in this collection. They were really beautifully written. All in all it was a really fantastic read.

I had trouble connecting with the stories, they where very confusing to me.
The stories are interconnected but it would have been nice to know how, since with short stories it is hard to understand the relationships and how the family tree was going. I could only recognize the last name.

Gomera-Tavarez does a wonderful job putting together this anthology of Dominican stories. The author intertwines magical realism, ancestry and other Dominican customs in these. The stories are beautifully written and allow you to visualize the landscapes and settings described. Dominican culture is nuanced and Gomera-Tavarez lovingly describes and details this. This perspective describes the stories of many other Dominicans, both on the island and in the diaspora, and allows other Dominicans and Dominican-Americans to feel seen through her writing.

Lockdowns at a high school, to New Year’s Eve in Puerto Rico the stories in this audiobook were varied and entertaining. The author gives great voice to the mini characters from a 10 year old girl to a five-year-old boy even an angry grandpa. Only a great writer can say so much with just the look in a book with no pictures. Not to mention I thought the narrator did an awesome job this book is so worth reading and so entertaining I gave it five stars and it deserves everyone of them. I was given this book by net Gally and I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any errors as I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own.

I loved this book!

High Spirits is a work of semi-autobiographical short fiction in which all eleven stories tie together by focusing on the same family, the Belens, and their family members both in America and in the Dominican Republic. This is Camille Gomera-Tavarez's first book and a real winner. I hope she continues to write because she has a great style. I really felt like I knew the Belen family by the end of the book and could cheer and cry for its members.

The topics of the stories vary greatly and include things like gender roles, religion, family dynamics, poverty, immigration, machismo, lgbt+ topics, and magical realism.

I listened to the audiobook of this work and thought the narrator was great and the format really added to the stories.

One of my new favorite books of all time!

This debut work of art by Camille Gomera-Tavarez features a series of short stories about a Dominican family with family members living in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. Through these short stories Gomera-Tavarez present a beautiful weaving of story telling and discussion of important topics such as feminism, the Dominican diaspora, mental health, religion, brujeria, gender roles and more. The writing is incredibly descriptive and beautiful and by the end of the book you feel like you are a part of the Belen family, or at the very least a close community member that has been adopted in. It amazes me to realize that this is only Gomera-Tavarez's first book! I really hope that she keeps writing and would love to read more work by her. Absolutely in love with her writing style!

I experienced this book as an audiobook and absolutely loved the narration provided by Coral Peña. Her voice with this story is a masterpiece. I will be in the lookout for other books narrated by her.

A collection of connected short stories. Narrated in a single voice. This one didn't quite translate for me on audiobook. The narrator was good, but read slowly and on the netgalley app, speeding up distorts the voice, so it felt lagging. The connections between stories were not always apparent and I might have liked this one better in print, where I could page back and forth more.

Thanks to netgalley for the audio arc, All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. I did feel like some of the concepts weren't developed properly, and I found it confusing to read at times. I also wished the book was a bit longer, as it stopped rather abruptly.

This collection of stories was written from the heart, and it's really apparent. I loved the tone and the flow of the stories and how they were all connected. Very exciting debut for a new voice like Gomera-Tavarez's.

This was wonderful, I generally don’t read short story collections. But this was wonderful and emotional and all of the good things

This work is a collection of short stories that are all connected in various ways. They follow an extended family who are from the Dominican Republic originally. The stories explore themes of mental health, race, displacement, identity. sexuality, and family and include some moments of magical realism.

I really enjoyed this read. The author excellently wove together several short stories that had some repeating characters and explored important themes. While the author didn’t have a full book to develop the characters, they weren’t lacking in depth or feeling. They all felt relatable and realistic in a way that brought their stories to life. I also loved the story that utilized some magical realism to convey a family’s history through the eyes of its women.

I listened to the audiobook of this work. The narrator did an excellent job with these stories; I highly recommend giving it a listen! And I look forward to reading more works by this author.

I received a complimentary copy of this work through NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, RB Media, and Recorded Books in exchange for an honest review.

HIGH SPIRITS is a collection of short stories from debut author Camille Gomera-Tavarez that all connect together over years and people both in the United States and in the Dominican Republic. There's a little bit of magic, but mostly, this is a collection of stories that delve into mental health, what it means to be family, and toxic masculinity all wrapped in the cultural experiences of people who were impacted by the Dominican diaspora. It's a quick read, but I think it lends a voice to an important part of human history.

Coral Pena does a great job with the audiobook narration and Gomera-Tavarez's prose lends well to consuming this collection of stories as an audiobook.

Thank you to Netgalley and Recorded Books for providing me an audioARC of this book in excgange for an honest review.

High Spirits is collection of interconnected short stories, that are auobiograhic and showcase moments and vignets from three generations of the author's family. All of them are told from younger or older teen perspectives with a non-linear timeline.
If you listen to this book on audio, make sure you have a way to look at the family tree from the book. It is essantial for keeping up with this story!

Hostely, I listened to this twice. The first time, I didn't have the family tree and had a hard time connecting to this book. Even on 1time speed, keeping up with it was so hard that I tuned out several times (sometimes listening to the same part three times and still not taking in any information).

Obviously, that didn't make for a very enjoyable read and left me deeply unsatisfied. In the end, I wanted to check wether the physical book featured any solution to my problem, and descovered a charming, hand-drawn family tree int he digital excerpt I read.
That one I took a screen shot of and then started again (the audiobook is only 3h long), and had a far better experience.
Being able to visually see were each story fell withing the constellation of this huge family (34 named members throughout four generations on the family tree alone) was an immense help and made it far easier connecting to each member on there own and the family as a whole.

And when able to enjoy and understand this book, High Spirits becomes a beautiful montage of family, diaspora, afro-dominican culture, coming of age and belonging, that's not just for kids or teens but something for people of all ages. It talks about mental health, machismo and identity. Moving through generations and across continents it draws an all-connecting circle that left me satisfied and deeply moved.

PS: Also, if you have a picture of the family-tree, I do recommend the audiobook as the narrator, Coral Pena, has a warm and soothing voice thats very nice to listen to and gives the book alot of colour.