When Death Gives You Lemons

For Fans Of: The Good Place, Dead Like Me, Miracle Workers (S1), Good Omens, Reincarnation Blues Guilt, grief, and the search for redemption are at the heart of this book. I found it to be a really beautiful meditation on guilt and mourning, on what redemption means or can mean. Grim repeatedly warns Isaac that there is no way to redeem what he has done - the murders have happened, they cannot be fixed - and questions why Isaac seems to be chasing forgiveness for 10-year-old crimes. Overall I have mixed feelings about the book. I went from "I love this" to "meh" about 60% of the way through. The back half of the book is bloated and drags on while Grim and Isaac have the same conversation over and over. I also thought Grim's relationship with Ann and Cris could have been played with more. It seemed like the author intended for there to be more there but realized too late that there would be conflict with reaper lore and cut it out. That being said, I found a lot to love about the book. Grim reminds me of Daniel Radcliffe's character in Miracle Workers (season 1), while Isaac made me think of a deeply depressed Jack Kerouac. I loved how absolutely messed up Isaac's story is. The author's choice to make it so deeply horrifying felt like a choice to make it impossible for the reader to try to excuse his actions and offer him redemption from outside the story. What he did was unforgivable, unredeemable - they were bad things and they cannot be fixed. To that end I thought…

This was definitely a read that took me a while to get into but once I hit about the half way mark I was invested to see where things would go. Firstly, this is definitely a book that has some dark topics and I’d really recommend looking up trigger warnings if you’re sensitive to any subject matters. Secondly, I wouldn’t say this is romance focused at all. There is a side romance but the story really focuses more on Issac and what happened. Issac is one of those more selfish unlikable/unredeemable type of characters but I thought he was written in a nice way that made him likeable to read from. I liked Grim especially, it was enjoyable to see this kind of naive reaper explore the human realm and really try to get a grasp on humans. I liked that we got some occasional funny/romantic moments between Grim and Issac, they were more subtle and far in between but it was nice to get a small moments between them against so many dark topics. The story leading up to the murders is mysterious and I liked the added sense of suspense that the writing gave. I would say you do kind of have to suspend your disbelief a bit because once things are explained it does feel kind of far fetched. Aside from that I enjoyed reading about both realms and their rulers, I liked the characters & their romance, and I thought that the ending was decent. Thank you to the author for my complimentary review copy.

this is a beautiful story. it takes you through grief, guilt, and death in such a wonderful way. this book allows you to view what happens after death in a new light. the relationship that develops between isaac and grim is so touching and genuine. grim doesn’t fully understand human emotions, but is still able to comfort isaac and learn what helps him. the story is beautifully paced and feels so natural.

Please I cannot this book was so cute and sweet and needed in a dark world like this one. I adore Grim and Isaac. This book broke and mended my heart over and over 😭