MEATPACKING

Despite a slow start (for me), this deftly written historical fiction captivated me. Engaging characters and enough history to keep the story interesting, Salome and her mother Max, live in an eclectic world in downtown New York. Recommended.

This is my first review on Netgalley.

A captivating story that flip flops through the years.

As I was reading I found I had to keep flicking back to remind myself what decade we're in. That's not easy on Kindle, so I bought the paperback from Amazon because it would be easier to keep track. When it was delivered I realized I'd read over half of it, even so I started the whole thing again.

A story about Salome and her single mother Max living in the loft above Mr Zwerling's hardware shop, Emmett who doesn't speak and a handful of characters intertwined like old memories. The railway viaduct runs by the loft and eventually doesn't, letting Salome with the help of nature take over the tracks.

This is a story about hardship and resilience that will stay with me. Wondering what would happen to Salome kept me reading to the end. I finished the book yesterday and this morning the thought came to me why she wondered why Emmett left without saying goodbye (cry face). I am a slow reader becuse I have a ton of other hobbies so maybe novels are the way forward for me, but I wish this book was longer. Five out of five.

This lovely book has been available for purchase for some time now and has had little interest from buyers on, for instance, Amazon. This is unfortunate as the small volume harks back to Dickensian tales of making the best of a life of hardship with ingenuity and the nurturing of friendship.

In the last few months I’ve listen to the audiobook series in the city from Sarah Lyons Fleming, and some parts from the second and third volume talk about and take place in high line park, and you know what?, that brought this place more to life since I am not from America and thinking about new york or living around in another district is as foreign as living in mars. I loved the descriptions of the drawings in the walls, the little details that brought the story to life, I may be biased but for me the mother max, she was just like max from the show 2 broke girls, a strong woman, that was brought up in the middle of a very hard life and tries to do her best for her daughter, (in the show as far as I have watched she doesn’t have a daughter but her main co-partner is like a child haha) but in the book max brings to life her daughter and tries her best to give her daughter Salome a better life and that was a very touching and nice story to read… friends are more than family to this two women, and in the years, some grow much closer and paint their story with so many more colours.

The book follows an order that at first is kind of hard to follow we go to the future and then back, but since the chapters start with the date that helps situate where we are.

I highly recommend this book for people who want to touch reality in a different way, to see the struggles of a woman that brought up her daughter in an age where a single mom was not that appreciated, this book will give you emotions and not all of those will be positive but is in a good way, the author writes in a very poetic way, we feel close to the characters and in the end they are more than characters in a book, they are friends that live abroad in another country but their struggles are just like the ones we have at home..

Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

Such a beautiful read, although heart-wrenching. A story of a girl raised by a single mother in the Meatpacking district of NYC. Don't come at me, because I know its a bold statement, but this book reminds be of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. It is about finding happiness in hardship. Please give this a read, it is excellent.