Small Joys, a review by Shelley

posted in: Shelley | 0

🐦🐦🐦🐦
SMALL JOYS
Elvin James Mensah

Random House Publishing Group | Ballantine
Publication Date: April 11th, 2023
320 Pages
Goodreads | Amazon

For a book that started out so heavy and dark it was quite beautiful in its own way. This is a book about friendship, family and not fitting into your parent’s expectations. I loved Harley’s friends, he is one very fortunate young man to have them. I especially liked his new friendship with Muddy, everyone should have a friend like that in their corner. The book was uplifting in the way that I was cheering Harley on throughout. There are many serious topics covered like suicide, homophobia, racism and mental health issues but the author did it in an informative and sensitive manner and did not use them in a gratuitous way.

Muddy was another character I loved, the way he spoke about birds and his granddad (especially his dementia) really tugged at my heartstrings as my eighty-year-old mother loves watching the birds at her feeders in her yard. This is the type of book you think about long after you finish reading it. What a beautiful debut. Small Joys was a big joy to read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

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