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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
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tense
fast-paced
A necessary book to read! Everyone should learn more about the history of slavery. I really admire the work that Hall undertook with this book and how she included her struggles and challenges to research slave revolts led by women. As a teacher, I constantly hear from my students about how they don’t really learn about slavery but want to know more. Enslaved people always revolted, but we never learn about it in our school systems to continue the erasure of that history. Hall is doing the work on restoring it.
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
An interesting personal narrative that's more about exploring hidden history rather than revealing it, the whole is ultimately less than the sum of its compelling parts.
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Truly wonderful graphic novel that is both a deeply personal and historical story on women-led slave revolts. Stories that have been erased and unspoken about. The historiographicall perspective on why historians left these stories out were informative. The visuals bring it all to life beautifully and add depth and dimensions to some of the themes -like ancestry in progress - that words alone could never do. I found the fact that Hall herself is one of the characters of the book and the examples of the racism and sexism she had to face as a researcher really telling for how we are haunted by slavery and its legacy. And as being a researcher myself I really appreciated this perspective. Will definitely reread.
dark
informative
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
A very interesting and emotional read about the author's experiences trying to research a difficult, traumatizing topic with limitations placed on her due to her gender and race. The art and stories were heartbreaking. It was so frustrating watching her get turned down for access to historical records again and again due not only her race and gender, but because companies wish to erase history and pretend like they weren't involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It would be so much better to just admit the painful history and then promote research and positive change. But no. Business and money is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more important, of course!
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
"Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts" delicately toes the line gut-wrenching and eye-opening. Dr. Rebecca Hall's grief in the course of her research is palpable from every page, and I feel like the story is stronger for her empathic link to the story.
Part memoir, part historical recounting, "Wake" sheds light on a often overlook portion of history, challenging preconceived gendered assumptions about the leaders of slave revolts, and indeed highlighting how female slaves abused these gender assumptions to lead the revolts. Dr. Hall leaves no stone unturned in her search for the impact these women had, taking measures to fly to England to check sources from the original company that had insured slave ship voyages. There are chapters where the author takes historical liberty to showcase a potential sequence of events that could have led to women led slave revolts, and I really enjoyed seeing the level of nuanced detail and emotion Dr. Hall and the artist Hugo Martinez inserts into these moments.
And on that note, the art style is a beautiful compliment to the story. Martinez's use of reflections, in windows, in puddles, to mirror a version of New York that was built by slavery, is a strong and impactful visual, and I enjoyed seeing the ways he experiment with graphic novel panel structure within the story. I also really enjoyed how Dr. Hall explained her choice in choosing to tell this story as a graphic novel. within her afterward, which adds a level of understanding for readers.
"Wake" is an emotionally impactful and highly informative read. Dr. Rebecca Hall is a historian researcher first and an author second, to the point where I do feel like text dialogue can be too dense, but all in all, this is definitely a book worth picking up.
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
