2.5 stars

What started out as a unique story with a very different concept drastically took a turn around halfway through.

Until the involvement of another storyline, I was incredibly interested in the story. It was refreshingly different. I wanted to know the outcome of the main character and was interested in reading the impact that this character had on her friends and family. The story already had so much going for it whether it be through connecting to the main character or connecting to the friendships. As well, there was the involvement of the main character's father and that introduced a discussion on religion. However, that could have been kept as a discussion instead of becoming a major plot point.

Around halfway through the novel, with the introduction of another complex storyline, everything then became too complicated and confusing. I enjoy complex and complicated stories, however; this story was ALREADY different enough. There was already a part of the story that the reader had to suspend their disbelief for. Yes, the new storyline was realistic which made it easily believable, but it was too much for the overall story. It became a novel where there was just too much going on.

I understand the importance of that second storyline and the discussions that it can produce. However, with its placement in this novel, it took away from the beginning of the novel and the main character's individual story. Due to that addition, it felt as if this novel was written with little direction. I'm disappointed because that original concept could have been what made the story great but instead it felt as if the story was lost along the way.

***Thank you to the publisher for supplying me with an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

I really wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. I liked the beginning--Henny's struggle to accept that she's dead, but also struggling to know why she is still lingering around. The navigation of the various friends, family, and acquaintances in dealing with her death is also touching and very realistic. That's where the book pretty much lost me though.
It flashes back in time to the 90s in Oregon where Ballot Measure 9 (an anti-homosexual bill) was on the forefront of everyone's minds. I think the book was supposed to bring to light that although so much has changed, so much (especially in a small town) is still stuck in that mindset. But the ballot measure did fail, it was nearly thirty years ago, and re-hashing all of it got totally tedious and made finishing the book a slog for me.
I thought this was going to be more of a small town dealing with grief novel, which is how it started, but it didn't end up being that way and I was totally disappointed.

I'm not sure what I thought this was going to be and I'm not sure if this is a book for me. It seemed like a book about friendships with lots of flashbacks and the story was told by a dead person. It was different, quirky and that could be the problem for me as I don't have much of a sense of humor. The writing seemed good but I just don't think it was the book for me.

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins by Katarina Bivald wasn't what I expected, but was so much more. It was a slow build, but I became more and more involved with the situations and the characters.

It opens with the ghost of Henny Broek who has been hit by a truck. Her life had been about to turn around--the love of her life has just returned to their small town, and Henny's dreams seem to be coming true. Then, before her dreams can be realized, Henny is looking at her own body.

At first, Henny thinks it must be a mistake or a dream, then when she accepts the fact that she is really dead, she thinks maybe she can convince God to somehow make it right and give her back her life and dreams. This doesn't work out either.

Henny isn't the kind of ghost who can be seen or heard; she can't directly influence anything, but once she has accepted her situation, Henny tries to make things better for the people she loves. She's happy that she can see her favorite mountain, tag along with her friends, see the sun rise each morning.

I love this book. It's the kind of book that makes you think, that tackles the strengths and frailties of humanity. There were twists in situations that surprised me--situations that didn't evolve the way I expected. It speaks in a gentle way to all the divisions among people, none of whom are perfect, none of whom are evil, all of whom judge and misjudge at times. It is about people who can be kind and compassionate and still display intolerance and prejudice. It is about friendship and family and community. It's about seeking a way to live together despite our differences.

It was exactly what I needed.

Scheduled for Jan. 16.

NetGalley/Sourcebooks
Fiction. Jan. 7, 2020. Print length: 448 pages.

Haunting, Humorous and Sad
This is kind of a weird story. It is about looking at life through the eyes of a dead person. The past and present are examined. Especially the simple joys that are the best part of life that the living seem to become blind to. A lot of it is just about treating others well.
A good portion of the book was all about gay rights controversy and how it affected the members of the story as people. I know that I will be digesting this book for quite a while, then I will read it again. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

This is not a book I was advise you to run out and buy, but if you were to come across it you might want to give it a chance.

This is a quirky, easily read story about friendships, memories and life in a small town. Some parts seemed repetitive but all-in-all a good story.

Oh, did I say it is told from the point of view of a main character....whom is deceased?

I found the premise interesting. The main character is a ghost who is watching what is happening in her previous job at the Pine Away Motel and its communuty. This was a fairly interesting book and it touched upon several sudjects such as greif, loss, and even LGBTQ rights. It was a good book but I'm not sure I would read it again.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

Henny just had the most wonderful weekend with the man she’s always been in love with…until she gets hit by a car walking back to the Pine Creek Motel where she works. Henny’s untimely death doesn’t end with her following the light into heaven, instead Henny finds herself still among her friends and family and feels that there must be a reason that she hasn’t passed to the other side.

As she watches her friends lives go on she travels around town and see’s Proposition 9, a proposal for a law against LGBTQ’s in Oregon is fought again, 15 years after it’s inception. Through Henny’s flashbacks we re-live the original opposition and also the day her friend Mackenzie revealed she was gay. The parallels to what is happening in her town today are apparent but the difference is in how her group of friends deal with that opposition today. Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins is a look inside a small community while they are grieving, loving, fighting for a cause, and finally moving on from their grief.

Bivald pits Henny’s diverse group of friends against the ultra conservative Baptist community who are trying to convince their town that evil things are going on at the rundown motel. It’s run by homosexuals and their guests are the town rejects (and Henny’s dad), gasp! As we get to know these people we see how banding together against a common enemy helps them deal with their grief for Henny. I loved the diverse cast of characters and how Bivald showed that despite people’s differences on the outside, inside they have the same depth of feeling.

If I had one criticism it would be that I felt Henny’s personal story was left a little unresolved. That’s it. I can’t say anymore because I’m afraid I’ll give the story away. I will say that this story touched me and made me jealous of the wonderful friendships portrayed in this novel and I cried quite a few times. So, keep some tissues close at hand!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest!

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins is a quirky, small-town, slice-of-life novel set in Pine Creek Oregon, The main character, Henny, age 33, is dead when we meet her at the start of the novel, having just been hit by a truck on the happiest day of her life.

What follows is ghost Henny's surveillance of her friends and loved ones as they gather at the motel where she lived and worked, each trying to make sense of facing life without Henny's cheerful presence. It's a motley cast of characters, each with their own oddities and struggles.

Unfortunately, the plot seemed overly long and rambling to me, and didn't always make a lot of sense. I felt that the book was trying very hard to be charming, but was only partially successful.

Henny is dead, and she is not exactly sure what her status is. She decides to settle on “ghost” as a working hypothesis, although that doesn’t seem right, somehow. From this perspective, she is able to observe her friends and family as they mourn, and then begin to move on from her death. Set against a background of small-town Oregon life, Henny’s anti-establishment friends and deeply conservative neighbors clash and clash again.

“Pine Away” is quirky and full of finely detailed characters. The “told by dead woman” gimmick was a little distracting for me, since I kept getting caught up in questions about what was going on with Henny being a ghost. But overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to more from the author.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Henny is hit by a truck when she dashes across the road after a romantic night with Michael, the man who she always loved but who left her to travel the world. Her ghost (and she's concerned because she doesn't meet any other ghosts, btw) hovers above her friends and family as they cope with her death. There are some great characters- Delores, Mackenzie, Camila, Michael- and Bivald has nailed her Oregon setting. This is less about Henny, though, than it is about how community was divided over LGBTQ issues and how it comes back together many years later. This meanders quite a bit and sometimes the message is subtle - and not even obvious until pages later. The motel serves as a proxy in some ways for change- the sign, in particular- but it's also the beating heart. Don, the trucker who hit Henny, finds himself only able to sleep in the office, for example. I'd like to have had a tad more backstory on Henny, her father, her mother, Camilla, and so on (a sentence or two would have been great). Thanks to Netgalley for the aRC. A good read.

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins is a heartwarming read about second chances and finding out you are never too old to start living. The book follows Henny, a thirty something year old local woman, who tragically died after being hit by a car. The story follows her trying to help her friends and family come to terms with her death. She is a silent observer to the changes at her job, the Pine Away Motel, and a revolving cast of characters that begin to call the place home upon her demise.The author did a wonderful job with presenting LGBTQIA characters and the alienation that can come from living in a small town that does not welcome differences. It is a feel good book and ends in a positive note; however I could not get into the book. It is well executed and thought out, but I did have to push myself to finish it. Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins is a small town book to those who want to read about Oregon, being different, and finding a home you did not expect to find.This book was provided by publisher from Netgalley in December 2019 for an honest review.

Even if I find this book well written I couldn't connect to the story and it fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

An unusual and interesting read. The story begins with Henny Broek losing her life after being hit by a lorry. She is now a ghost watching over her friends and family and wondering why she has not been able to move on. As she reflects on her friendships and relationship with Michael who had recently returned she realises that perhaps she is still able to exert an influence and wants to ensure her friends come together to fight the bigotry that they've experienced in the small town they grew up in. Wryly amusing and poignant, this is a beautiful coming of age story that encourages the reader to value every moment of their life, and stresses the importance of finding your tribe, a place where you are loved for just who you are.

This book tells the story from the point of view of Henny, who is actually a ghost having been run over by a truck in the first chapter of the book. Why she's a ghost, why she's hanging around, why there aren't any other ghosts, etc., is kind of touched upon but never satisfactorily explained, and is just strange.

The book is about Henny's "family" -- her father, but also her close friends (Mackenzie, a lesbian motel manager; Camilla, a trans woman who owns the motel; Michael, the love of Henny's life who left their town 15 years ago. It talks about small-town bigotry and ignorance, and is a scary look at Trump's America, and the second half is pretty powerful.

Where this book has a problem, however, is the first half. It was unnecessarily long and could have easily been shortened by 30-50 pages without taking away anything needed to tell the story. It's a great message and could be a great story if it just moved a bit faster along the plot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book. It has not influenced my opinion.

Tucked away in the Oregon forest is the Pine Away Motel, run by friends Henny and McKenzie . When Henny's old friend and former flame Michael returns to the town after a gap of many years, the two reunite and it seems like the future looks bright. On her way back to work after spending the night with Michael, a distracted Henny is struck and killed by a truck and her ghost acts as the narrator for the rest of the book , which follows her father, friends and the rest of the townspeople as they come to terms with her tragic death. Throughout the book we are also shown flashbacks about Henny's teenage years, and how she developed close friendships with McKenzie, Michael and Camila through their shared opposition to a proposed bill to discriminate against LGBTQ+ rights. Although the book is often quite whimsical in tone, it does deal with the serious issue of small town homophobia, and has both gay and transgender characters who are relatable and believable. Once again Bivald has excelled herself in creating a realistic small town setting with a wonderful array of characters, both good and bad, and despite the slow pace of the book, I found myself enjoying it.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I must admit I took days to finish this book. I just felt it was long, and not much to really enjoy. I wish it could have had more. I loved the cover.
Thanks, NetGalley for the advance copy to review.

I was really excited to receive the advance copy of this book as I loved the author’s previous book. This one was so very different I almost couldn’t bear to read it as it starts with a death and I knew it wasn’t going to be the happy ending I really wanted. As I read, however, I realized that happy endings come in all shapes and sizes and this book didn’t disappoint. The characters are realistic and wonderful and I found myself going through a host of emotions at the small town bigotry that was mixed with neighborly life.

I just adored The Reader’s of Broken Wheel Recommend so much, so I was very excited to receive an ARC of her new book. Like her previous book this is a very quirky story. What started as one type of story, turns into a somewhat political story, which I was not expecting, but nevertheless it worked.

The story is narrated by Henny, who from the opening pages we found out has just been killed when she was hit by a car crossing the street by the motel she works in. Henny then gives you an inside view of her father and her close circle of friends.

Her Dad is not handling his daughter’s death well. He has dealt with a lot of death before, but this appears to be the last in the line of his family that he has to be bury. Then we get to see Henny’s closest circle of friends, McKenzie who runs to the Motel, Camila who owns the motel and Michael, the boy she appears to have always had a romantic interest in.

The other side character is the actual town that they reside in Oregon. Oregon has always been known for anti-gay measures and this particular town seems to take it to the extreme. This town gangs up on this motel, in part because of Camilla who is trans and McKenzie who is a lesbian, and partly because the motel is not everything that is advertised per the original sign.

This story is about grief, living you best life and overcoming people’s prejudices. This book is very lengthy, but because of this you do get to see the characters mature, which is very much needed, There is a lot to make you think as you progress through this story. I think this would be a great book club read as there is so much to unpack in this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I was a teenager I read a Sweet Valley High book where a terrible earthquake occurred and a beloved side character died in the aftermath.

She was cremated and her ashes were scattered in the ocean and I was so touched that immediately after reading that I went up to my mother and told her that when I died I wanted the same kind of treatment.

She. Was. HORRIFIED.

“Amanda, I don’t want to talk or even THINK about you dying before me. Let’s not discuss this, okay?!”

“But what if that does happen, mommy? ANYTHING could happen. It happened in the book!”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about this another time, okay? But not now. It’s not going to happen. I don’t want to think about it.”

Thinking about it now I completely see what she meant. What parent wants to think about burying their child? Lmao and what parent is going to gleefully write down their child’s burial wishes? But I am Ms. Lack’s Common Sense and Amanda the Oblivious.

Henny Broek hadn’t planned on dying obviously. Especially not on being flattened by a truck in a town she lived all her life. As a ghost she’s accepted it the best she can which is not well at all. She’s determined to keep living, keep reaching out to her family, her friends, the love of her life. After all they need her there. Everyone and everything is falling apart without her. She cannot let a little thing such as death and cremation get in her way.

Henny realizes that she is still lingering for a reason and it’s up to her to figure out why. She has to push her loved ones from spiraling and have them see that although she is no longer there physically, she’ll always be with them in less tangible forms.

For a book that focuses on the heaviest of subjects this was a witty somewhat lighthearted read.

Don’t get me wrong, there were points where I wanted to sob of course but I also found myself laughing at loud at many instances. Henny’s obituary was just so ridiculous that I couldn’t help myself.

I don’t think I’ve read a book where the main character was dead and narrated the entire book so this was definitely different. I mean yeah, horror novels but that’s not the same at all. This is definitely more contemporary and more about people navigating through the aftershocks of grief. It’s rough.

I was honestly very surprised and happy at the LGBT representation in the novel. MacKenzie is a lesbian and Henny’s best friend and roommate and Camila is a transwoman and one of Henny’s best friend. The town that Henny is from is very small and very close minded so a lot of this book is about them navigating the waters of this small/homophobic town. MacKenzie isn’t even allowed to go to Henny’s funeral because of the rumors between her and Henny.

There is also long lost love. Henny’s death is bittersweet as her last moments alive are spent with the man she loved dearly and who she thought she lost forever. He comes back and they spend the night and she feels free again, she feels whole She leaves him and does not know that this time it is forever.

Moments extend into eternity

This is a book about friendship, romance, navigating through grief. It’s funny and heartwarming. It’s an enlightening read and definitely one that’ll produce tears and laughter. It is a touch on the long side and it’s a slow burn but it is more than worth the read. As much as the world is changing there are pockets and cubbies that refuse to budge. This book is a great representation of this and it’s nice to see it doesn’t shy away from the harshness of reality.

I can’t say this was easy for me to read especially with the cloud of death and depression that has been looming over me this summer especially but I’m glad I did. Death is never easy and mourning is not something that goes away so easy. It’s like an ocean, each wave is different. It’s all about how you navigate through the tide.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy of my ARC. All opinions are my own.