3,75 stars

"Carmen and Grace" was a really interesting book to read. I liked the different perspectives and and overall I thought it was a good read, but it felt just a little too long in places.

I really enjoyed parts of this book, but I was left wanting more. There was a lot of potential in this but then I felt it was let down by some parts being too long and then the timeline was also a cause of confusion at times. Overall,I do think it's a good read especially if you like strong female characters.

I love coming of age books, and this novel set in the Bronx takes you deep into another world, that of Carmen and Grace. The girls are lifelong friends - and the book follows what happens when one of them comes under the influence of the area's drug dealing Doña Durka - while the other girl just wants to get out.

This is a heartrending emotional rollercoaster, and all through I just wanted the girls to be OK.

Described as female Latinx Godfather drama, Aquino’s debut is a bleak and difficult read. Set in the Bronx, Carmen and Grace’s lives revolve around the underground drugs trade and the gang that they were effectively indoctrinated into at a young age. One woman wants to rise up within the organisation while one desperately wants out.

This story contained elements that made for difficult reading, particularly the grooming of a young girl by a much older man and his mother. I wanted to be wowed by this story as the synopsis really grabbed my attention, but it fell flat for me. It was too long, the pacing was a bit all over the place and the different timelines made it hard for me to keep track. The main characters were well written, but the narrative style of the author and the way the secondary characters were not as developed, meant that I lost interest about half way through.

Carmen and Grace deals with some heavy-hitting topics including absent mothers, bad childhood, abuse, drugs and murder but what I will say stands out is the depiction of female friendship and sisterhood. The bond between Carmen and Grace and the development of their relationship was the standout element for me in this story.

Personally, Carmen and Grace isn’t for me, but if you like coming of age stories, this might be for you.

Carmen and Grace was released in April 2023. Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the arc. 2.5 ⭐️

Carmen and Grace is an interesting story about the family you create and it's not necessarily the family you are born with,
The book takes a bit to get in to but its well worth persevering with.

"Carmen and Grace" by Aquino weaves a complex narrative of friendship. The book delves into the lives of its characters with depth, capturing their struggles and growth. Aquino's storytelling is engaging, although the pacing could be tighter. The book paints a vivid picture of the bond between Carmen and Grace, offering an immersive experience that tugs at the heartstrings while occasionally testing patience.

A very emotional read that had me in tears at times. It isn’t an easy read at all. I would recommend this book

Thanks to @headofzeus and @netgalley for the arc!

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

This book threw me in at the deep end and it just didn’t seem to slow down at any point. The synopsis will be in the comments because this one deserves the full attention and much like Chapter 1, you have to sit down and pay attention to keep up with this wild ride!

Carmen and Grace follows two women who are so close, they are practically sisters. They have grown up with each other, dragged each other up when need be and have a bond so deep that the story is told by both of them with each leading us down a different path filled with their hopes and fears which we get to witness from both sides.

They live in the Bronx and are working together in a female gang ran by Grace who is business minded and almost hypnotic in her actions. Carmen is so close to Grace, they almost feel like soul mates but she’s looking for an out, that Grace won’t give her. It feels magic and chaotic with a whole found family in these strong female characters and it all felt so visceral. We learn about the drug business, the women, their backstories, their lives, survival and it’s all wrapped into a noisy, fast, thrilling ride of a time with each chapter feeling like you’re being whiplashed and thrown between Carmen and Grace. I especially loved the moments where the women were taking what was theirs, they were powerful and strong in a very violent world which sought to quiet these women!

If you love found family, sisters or strong female relationships, the backdrop of the Bronx, a story of survival or even just an emotional rollercoaster, I’d recommend Carmen and Grace. An easy 5 stars!

This book is not always an easy read, but it’s definitely a worthwhile read! The themes of poverty, drug abuse and addiction is an insight into some people’s modern day lives and their realities of just trying to survive.
The two cousins Carmen and Grace are nurtured by a family member who runs an underground drugs ring, and they are given their own roles in the business. This is a complicated tale of family, loyalty and survival.
I particularly loved the relationship between Carmen and Grace, their relationship is so relatable and as characters they are so engaging.
At certain points during the book I felt there was a bit of a lull but the rest of the book is so plot heavy and engaging I feel this is bound to happen.

Such a different subject for a fiction, but I rather enjoyed it. I greatly appreciated getting both perspectives. I didn't particularly like or connect with and character but that did make the book feel more believable. People are complex in real life.

I did find that this book dragged on and I was sad to see that
<spoiler>Carmen couldn't escape the cycle of blindly protecting Grace to her own detriment</spoiler>

Overall it was interesting read, but I found it too long and it lost me at about the halfway mark.

Thanks: Received from NetGalley and Head of Zeus in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐✨

This one packs a punch!

Two girls, living in the Bronx's Puerto Rican community, find that their lives take a turn - for better or worse is a matter of semantics - when the benevolent, mother-figure and protector, Dona Durka takes them under her wing. But Dona Durka is a hardened drug boss, and their girls are part of the DOD - Daughters of Durka, a sisterhood of street-toughs, banded together by friendship, loyalty and culture. It is only after the death of Dona Durka that two of the girls - Grace and Carmen - must make a decision - to stay or go.

This is a powerful debut novel that explores the complexities of sisterhood, culture and upbringing, of loyalties and the ties that bind. No decision is easily made and all decisions have consequences, not just for the self but for others.

Definitely a must read!

Brutal and raw it drove my emotions through the wringer and I had to reach for the tissues several times. The heart break is wrenching and it will make you hug your family and friends just a little bit longer.

Carmen and Grace follows two cousins that have grown up in the drug world, when their ‘leader’ dies, Grace takes over but Carmen on the other hand is desperate to get out.

This book is bleak and can be hard to read in parts, I found it quite slow and hard to get into but there are lots of glowing reviews so I think that’s my issue rather than the book.

It personally wasn’t for me but it’s beautifully written and I can understand why it’s popular.

unfortunately i found myself having to dnf this book, i found it took too long to get into and felt confusing :( hopefully i can try again later

Really wanted to like this one as I love stories about family dynamics, but I knew almost immediately I wouldn’t be able to connect with the writing style unfortunately.

This is a powerful tale of female friendship as we follow the story of Carmen and Grace, cousins who feel more like sisters due to their difficult upbringings.

The trajectory of their lives changes when Toro, a local drug boss goes in search of Grace's addict mother and instead meets 14-year-old Grace. She ends up adopted by his mother who controls the drug business in their area, living in her house and being groomed as a future successor.

The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Carmen and Grace, from when they were children through to the present day. It is at times stark, harrowing and brutal although there is a lot of positive too as the 'lost girls' of the DoD realise their potential and come to find their own strengths through the further education and development enforced by Grace.

Carmen has dreams of walking away and being free, whereas Grace dreams of expansion and making the girl's business a bigger success. Carmen becomes pregnant, which creates distance between the two - she feels unable to confide her situation and what she wants her future to be while Grace views it as almost a failure, following in their mother's footsteps when they had vowed to be different and make new lives for themselves.

The unexpected death of Dona Durka sets the wheels in motion for a new future for them both, as the battle for control of her empire drags them all in with some expected and some unexpected consequences.

I found this story really absorbing and I was really invested in both character's stories, the author has done a brilliant job of building a complex and detailed world with characters who are flawed but ultimately trying to find their way and make the best of what they have.

Childhood friends who didn't have the best start in life. As adults this is told from both their perspectives in a split timeline. Topics such as neglect, addiction and drugs are touched on so not a read for the faint hearted. At times it was a difficult read but you are compelled to carry on to see the outcome.

**Thank you NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the opportunity to read this book**

Melissa Coss Aquino, the amazing author of “Carmen and Grace”, was able to tear apart my heart with her work. The story of a group of young girls, and particularly of cousins – or best, sisters – Carmen and Grace, who tried to survive to a hostile reality, the one of criminality, while they deal with their own fears and tribulations, among which the grief, the one for Durka, the woman who saved and condemned them, for those disappeared mothers who had never been such. Biological mothers, adopted, childless mothers, motherless children. And in the terror, in the solemnity of the relations between sisters, between women, those very foiled relationships, there’s the maternity in its different forms becoming divine imagine. A maternity between death and the dread from poverty and the fragility of life, and that hope pushing for the most desperate acts of courage or stupidity, the last sacrifice in the name of a new life, whatever is this new life, whatever is maternity, which is nothing more than the essence of feminine, being either belligerent or creator.
“Carmen and Grace” is a universe unveiling itself page after page, looking like something to become else, as the different female deities called to tell the story of the main characters. It’s an essay on social inequality at first, then a crime fiction, or a feminist manifesto, and yet a tale on maternity and the way it’s manifested.
This novel is not another crime fiction, the usual story of a group of young lads trying to emerge from misery, but falling into the trap of evilness, but it’s something more, something deeper, because criminality is just an excuse, a lens to focus a rooted and systemic issue, that is the inequality of access to equal opportunity. How many bright minds, how many talented and smart young women had to settle for a life of hardship, to not to fulfil their ambitions because the system privileges those who’s already privileged, gives a value based on the social class, and not on individual’s capabilities, and denies the right to aspire. Then, education is a process of self-realisation, not an end; education is a form of resistance. To know is a weapon of self-defence against oppression, and that’s why Grace pushes her girls to study, to get information, to own a critical thought. To know to survive, to think to live.
This books is a story on hope, on mistakes, on the sfortune to have been born with no privilege, in places where the tentacles of criminality grasp easily those bright minds, brave hearts. It’s a multiform and multicoloured story, which tricks the reader at first, until it unveils all the beauty of the world to those who gets to the end, the beauty of those lost and founded girls, the complexity of Carmen, Grace, Red and of the other D.O.D girls, Daughters of Durka.

A gripping story of strong powerful women using any way to escape their poverty-stricken surroundings, whether legal or not. The two cousins Carmen and Grace are nurtured by a family member who runs an underground drugs ring, and they are given their own roles in the business.
Their stories are not always easy reading, they have to make tough uncompromising decisions - but family loyalty is strong.
Thanks for the chance to read the ARC

thank you netgalley and the publisher for sending an e-arc for review :)

i really loved this book and the last third of it literally grabbed at my heart and wouldn't let go
the ending had me feeling all types of emotions from pure rage and frustration to overwhelming love and heartache (the good kind)
the story closed in the perfect way - it wasn't rushed and it didn't leave me feeling like something was missing which i think is quite rare!