It was a deep way to go into grief, but it also had a tinge of hope and while some of the characters weren't that likable to me, I could connect to the main character and even shed a couple of tears, reminding me that the title itself allows for hope to move on from the grief. It was a decent read, written in a way that touches your heart.

A compelling read. Beautifully written, well-thought-out characters, and a developed setting. I truly enjoyed this one!

2/5 stars.

While offering a deep and fun take on grief, the writing was lacklustre for me and I did not find myself connecting to any of the characters.

The cover is what drew me in, and hearing it was about grief I thought it would be heart-wrenching. It was in a way, but not to the extent that I was expecting, don't know if that is a good or bad thing!

I really enjoyed my time reading this, however there was something lacking in the characters and, as a result, the romance didn't really do much for me. I liked how they turned to humour to cope with the grief, which is a very valid method of coping and it was really sweet to see the characters move on from the grief.

2 ⭐
Things That Grow by Meredith Goldstein was a book I really wanted to love. I felt like I would have really related to Lori, but the lack of character development made it difficult to get invested. Initially the book had promise. Grieving the passing of a grandmother is the hardest thing I can think of. But I felt this book kinda put a toe in instead of cannon balling into a slew of emotions that could have been! I really like books that evoke strong emotions with a compelling story and character development. Sadly this book didn't do that for me. There were some hijinks that ensued, but overall I felt disappointed by the end and desired more from the story.

I really enjoyed this book, it was really thought provoking for me. Wonderfully written, easy to follow. Would definitely recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this title.

When Lori's beloved grandmother dies, her life is thrown into tumult. Faced with the reality that she will have to move away from the home she loves, where she'd lived with her grandma, and back in with her mom, Lori struggles with all the changes in her life. She doesn't want to leave her home or her best friend, who she has a massive crush on. Still, Lori knows that her grandmother's last wishes need to be fulfilled. Along the way, Lori and her family will come to terms with their losses and learn things about themselves along the way.

This wasn't a bad book. It did seem to drag some. I never truly connected with the characters even though the overall story was good.

Lori and her family travel from garden to garden to spread her grandma's ashes. Based off the synopsis it sounded like it would be a poignant read dealing with grief and loss. While it had some of that, I felt like there was a huge lack of emotion when grief was discussed. I just felt there was some heart lacking and the characters felt a little flat. Kt also focused on romance too much and there was no chemistry between the two. I felt that Lori and Chris were completely platonic but that the feelings they had were kind of forced just to add to the story line. I think I would've liked this better if there was no added romance. Overall, I found this to be very okay.

It is very human to go to humor when things are sad or frightening. This is captured so, so well in 'Things That Grow'. I totally dig the humor, especially since it was totally relatable. When my granddad died two years ago, my family gravitated towards the same black humor Lori and Seth had (something the undertaker did not understand at all, poor man). Meanwhile, so many emotions, strange choices and other things that come onto our paths in such times are passing by, and not everything can be resolved with jokes.

The only thing I would have liked to be different is the emotional depth of Chris. Around half of the book I knew more about Jessica's emotions, while she had had two short appearances, than of Chris's. I think he could have been fleshed out better, to make him more than a token-best-friend, token-black-person, token-love-interest, especially since he is such an important person to Lori.

I want to thank Netgalley and HMH Books for the chance to read this book.

Not gonna lie, I rarely read YA contemporary, however the blurb of this was too intriguing to not request. Also, I'm someone who's really interested in good grief representation in YA fiction, and so I was curious to see how Goldstein touched upon this subject. Overall, Goldstein really captured the illogical nature of grief and the way it affects the grieving.

This was captured within the way the plot moved, and I appreciated that grief manifested not just in the character, but the story structure itself. Goldstein's style isn't super lyrical, but it is still beautiful and refreshing. I loved the description of the different flowers. This is a poignant picture of grief.

This heart wrenching story will rip out your heart. Its the perfect book to sit on the beach and think about far off places you would like to visit. This book had all the feels but I kind of wish it would have had a magical realism to it as I think it would have just made it that more magical. The only issue I had was that I think that this would have made a better movie. Parts of the story were a little confusing but overall it was still worth the read.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this charming novel but what I found inside the pages was absolutely breathtaking!

I was intrigued by the blurb and wanted to read because I too have faced a devastating loss and wanted to see what this author felt comes next! I loved the healing and new “family” Lori found along the way! I loved how the existing relationships around her grew and strengthened but I also loved this story because it was just her story!

Her uncle Seth was amazing from the start and though we don’t get his point of view on events it was still amazing seeing his journey as well!

An amazing story and thank you to

I finished Things That Grow a couple of days ago, and I decided to wait a bit until I wrote this review, as there were some things I had to mull over. I think my final opinion on this books is that while this book was good, it was also very similar to other books I’ve read before.

This is a beautiful tale of love and loss, of how not perfect things can be in life but also of how perfect they can be in their imperfection. There was one scene where I cried. I laughed, I smiled, I felt.

Lori is a good main character. She is fun and relatable and just the right kind of quirky for this type of YA contemporary story. Seth is the classic supportive older side character, and Chris the boy-next-door type of love interest (I personally did not get any chemistry between these two characters at all, but that’s quite typical for me so this might definitely not be the case for you!). Grandma Sheryl is the classic borderline-quirky grandma. All of this together adds up to a good story, and it was. I just kept feeling like I had read this story before.

This book was somewhat strange for me. The first 49% took me two weeks to finish and then I read the rest of the book in pretty much one sitting. I was never bored, I didn’t dislike it, I just didn’t find myself reaching for it which definitely reflects more on me as a reader than it does on the book itself.

All the “ingredients” of this book should (and also did, partly at least) make this a pretty pleasant read. However, I was just constantly reminded of how very similar this book was to other stories I’ve read before, both in theme and in plot. Which is fine, but is also the reason why I “only” rated this book three stars.

I won’t go on any longer as I’m now starting to sound like a broken record. I’m going to finish this review off by saying that this book was a solid three star read for me and that I found it to be good, plain and simple.

A solid YA read that packs a punch. On point storytelling that focuses on family, coming of age romance, loss, and grief. A contemporary rendering that will appeal to all ages. Engaging from start to finish.

If I had to come up with a way to describe Things That Grow it would be that this book is very much a love letter to stories and nature, and a blanket for the grieving. Loss is always a hard thing to deal with and if I were being honest, it’s even harder to write about. Things That Grow by Meredith Goldstein had its ups and downs, but I think it did a wonderful job of portraying the messiness and unscripted ways of grief. While I wouldn’t call her writing style elegant, at times it did reflect a sort of poignancy that really brought a lot of heart into the story.

There were so many things about the plot that at first seemed so random and disjointed, but in the end, they turned out to be important pieces. I really liked just how cleverly Goldstein would tie those pieces into the story and give the plot a whole new life. There were also some things that just remained random, but still felt like they had their own importance, their own story to tell. Things like giant bears carved out of hedges or the guy at the bar named Jake. And, of course, the plants.

As a serious plant lover but unfortunate plant killer, this book was like finally being able to be a horticulturist without actually buying any plants. Goldstein’s descriptions of the gardens and parks left me breathless, they were that stunning. And it also helped me better appreciate plants and everything they do for the environment. It was absolutely amazing, almost like taking a trip to these gardens myself. And to be honest, it makes me want to actually throw away all of my plans, hop in a car, and take a trip across the country just to look at all of the different gardens.

With a large array of characters, there were several in the book that I would feel like I would have loved to meet in real life. But my two favourites were Christian, a.k.a. Chris, and Lori’s grandmother. Chris is the kind of friend that everyone wants—supportive, kind, and always there when you need a shoulder to cry on. He’s also an artist, which meant that he would illustrate Lori’s stories for her, and I honestly would love to have a friend that draws things for my writings. And Lori’s grandmother is the kind that I always wished I had—a super book worm, teacher, friend and companion. I mean, how amazing would it be to have an English teacher grandma when you’re a writer? That would be amazing.

If there was one thing I enjoyed the most about Things That Grow, it was Lori’s relationship with her mother. Lori frustrated me to no end with her seeming hatred of her mother for most of the book. To me, it didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but I could understand why a teenager who never had a stable home would be eternally upset with her mother. Still, I also understood the mother’s point of view of things and could sympathise with both characters. And when you sympathise with both characters, it can make things somewhat annoying. But the way everything resolved in the end was wonderful, and I really enjoyed it.

Now I’m going to talk about the few things I didn’t like. While most of the time Lori’s and Chris’s relationship was just about perfect, Lori also had a huge crush on him throughout most of the book that, too me, just felt awkward. And yes, the whole time she told herself that she couldn’t ever change their friendship status to boyfriend/girlfriend status, she still was very much into him, which just made me feel slightly uncomfortable. The other thing was Lori’s Uncle Seth. While he was an okay guy and Lori really looked up to him, I found him to be very immature and somewhat annoying. But I digress.

Overall, Things That Grow is beyond emotionally lovely and it’s the perfect read for lovers of words and flowers.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an eARC in return for an honest review.

When Lori’s Dorothy Parker loving grandmother dies, Lori’s world is turned upside down. Now her mother insits that she move to Boston during her senior year of high school and away from her best friend and crush. Throughout the book, Lori goes on a journey to furfill her grandmother's final wish of scattering her ashes near things that grow.

I was expecting there to be a deeper plot/meaning to the books, since that's what the description of the book implies but found myself underwhelmed. I also found this book to be slow and found myself skipping certain parts of the book to get to the more interesting parts.

I was really attracted to this book by the beautiful cover and description. However, I found it quite hard to get into and quite slow to start.
The topic of death and cremation is a hard one but it is well written and I would consider reading more from this author.

I really enjoyed this book. Even though it appears to be a young adult novel, it really speaks to those of us who have lost loved ones. The information on cremation was helpful and interesting, as was the tie-ins with Dorothy Parker and Edith Wharton. This novel is fairly short and highly readable. Highly recommended for a good, short read!

Things That Grow is a great YA book about a girl who is taking her grandma's cremains to different gardens to sprinkle them among the growing things. I really enjoyed the book. While it says it is a love story on the cover, I did not think it went very deep into the relationship between the two main characters. I found the love story secondary to the story of how she deals with her grief over her grandmother, how she deals with her estranged family, and the garden tour for ashes. The characters are pretty well-written and the setting is interesting. I thought it was a great book and loved the cover art.

This was such a cute book. Which I will admit is a little weird considering the topic (the death of a loved one). However, it was written in such a way that I found myself smiling and laughing out loud SO many times. I mean, craisins anyone? 😂 The characters (mostly) were likable. I didn't particularly care for Seth, and Chris was a little "flat", but overall, every single character added a little something to the story. I also really enjoyed the theme of the gardens and the detail the author went into about each place. Just an enjoyable read from start to finish for me.

Side Note: The cover on this book is GORGEOUS. I love it!