Hey Everyone,

Hope you’re all doing well. I don’t have much new to report, my days are continuing to go by in a blur. I did however book a holiday the few days ago, so my fiancé and I are jetting away for a week to relax and reset. Very much needed and I cannot wait for it. Less than a month to wait so I need to start thinking about some beach reads in preparation.

Book 📖

Thank you to @tandemcollectiveuk for having me on this readalong and @trapeze_books for a copy of People Person by @candicec_w. As always, I had a great time on this readalong with all of the other fantastic readers.

Description 🔖

If you could choose your family, you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons

Dimple, Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce are half-siblings who don’t have much in common except abandonment issues. But when a catastrophic event forces them to reconnect with each other and with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things start to get complicated fast . . .

People Person is a propulsive story of heart, humour and homecoming, about the true nature of family and the complexities of belonging.

General Thoughts 🤔

The blurb was what drew me to this book and made me want to pick it up and give it a go. It was only afterwards that I got a feel for this author’s style and content. I’m so glad that this book crossed my path and I was given the opportunity to read it because it spoke to me and it spoke hard.

The plot isn’t overly complicated and didn’t have any fancy twists and turns, but it was real and relatable. The characters were just as relatable and I loved how each of them had their own strong personality traits, yet they were also alike in many ways too. Following them all through this story was a joy.

Characters 👫👭👬

Out of all of the siblings, I would probably say that Nikisha was my favourite. What I haven’t quite worked out yet is whether that’s because I really liked her as a person, what she stood for and how she interacted with the other characters or whether it’s simply because I am also the eldest of half siblings and it felt like reading myself on the page. Either way, I loved Nikisha and I would love to read a spin off book just about her and her life.

The sibling I related to the least was Lizzy. She very much had a chip on her shoulder and I think her hostility was very much misdirected. Instead of appreciating that her siblings were all in the same situation as her, she put them all in the same negative box as their father and I think it took her a long time to see them as individual people that just wanted to get to know and love her.

Writing Style ✍️

I was only a handful of chapters in before I knew that I most definitely want to read more books by this author. I loved the way that the story was able to make me feel deeply emotional and at the same time have me laughing my head off. There were some family dynamics within the story that really struck a chord with me and I found some of it difficult to read but I’m so glad that I did. I used this book to complete a prompt for a reading challenge that was “a book I should have read in high school” and I feel like I need to say that louder for the people in the back! This book would have helped me tremendously when I was sixteen.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I am so grateful for this book and this author. I have to be honest and admit that I probably wouldn’t have been drawn towards this book if it wasn’t for Tandem Collective, but the moment that I had read the blurb I knew that I had to read it. There was so much of this story that I relate to personally but I also think you could equally enjoy this book and feel the same feelings I did from an empathetic viewpoint. It had me laughing, smiling, and bawling. I wholeheartedly recommend People Person and I cannot wait to get my hands on Queenie next.

😍😍😍😍😐