Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Yellow Wife

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

58 reviews

kibbles15's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This is a hard book to read. It goes into great detail about what the female slave (Main character) has to deal with throughout her life. If you are not prepared to get immersed into the horrors of slavery, I would suggest not reading this book. If you can handle it, this book is eye opening and should be, in my opinion, be read at least once by every adult.

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thequeenvey's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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bandysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

As an avid reader of historical fiction, I'd heard of this book several times, but only just recently got around to reading it. I want to say that I'm glad to have finally read it, except that I don't know if glad is the right expression for this book. Yellow Wife is the story of a biracial woman who is sold off to the owner of an infamous slave prison. He is taken with her beauty and whit and essentially forces her to marry him. What follows is the story of her life.

This book is a masterwork in historical fiction. It is inspired by a true story, but is a fictionalized account. Johnson does such a phenomenal job of making her characters real and creating a story that will haunt readers well after they put the book down. Some of that is due to the horrific scenes she creates to instill in the reader the unflinching truth about the inhumanity of slavery and some of that is due to the main character, Pheby, who makes impossible choice after impossible choice.

One thing in particular that takes a lot of skill in writing about brutality like slavery is finding the balance between creating horrific scenes that show the experiences of the victims and not making it so brutal that your readers stop reading. While this story definitely has some extraordinarily difficult scenes and Johnson is very detailed in her writing, I did feel that the brutal scenes she wrote about had a specific purpose both within the story and in the larger picture of remembering the atrocity that was slavery. It was brutal, but not gratuitous.

And I found myself so relentlessly rooting for Pheby. Every time you wonder how she could ever possibly keep going, she finds ways to endure. She is such a tough, strong, and eventually selfless character who struggles with the morality of what she has to do daily to survive. In the bleakest parts of this book, I kept reading because I just had to know what happened to Pheby in the end.

All in all, this is a well-written historical fiction about some of the unknown bits of slavery. It's about how women specifically were victimized and the ways that they overcame and continued to survive. I would definitely recommend reading the trigger warnings on this book before reading, but I unequivocally would recommend reading this too.

Trigger Warnings: Rape, Sexual Assault, Forced Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, Torture, Whipping, Mutilation, Starvation, Sexual Slavery, Sex Trafficking, Severe Injury, Illness, Death, Infanticide, Slavery, Public Humiliation

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bookin_w_tues's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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haley49's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This was such a poignant account of slavery in the 1850’s South and the horrible complexities of the trauma of slavery, no matter your position in the house. The comparison between enslaved people based on their duties and the interpersonal relationships that suffered. I had such visceral reactions to everything that happened and I felt for every single character (besides the enslavers) that it couldn’t be less than 5 stars. The only disappointment was the realization that this wasn’t a inspirational book where things instantly improved after slavery. I so wanted them too but that isn’t how it happened I guess.

I would recommend this story to anyone looking for a first hand fictional account of a complex part of history. However, check trigger warnings and make sure you are mentally well enough for the heavy themes.

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sollyreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I really struggle to read books about black trauma, particularly the traumas of slavery. I blame it on the required reading of some
of my English courses between high school and college that over-relied on the readings of space narratives. Yellow Wife is an interesting novel that dives into so many aspects of the life of a woman in the antebellum South. Pheby Delores Brown is a protagonist that you will both love and hate at moments in her development. Born a mulatto house girl, she is taught to read, write and many other privileged skills due to the mercy of her first owner. She is many ways protected from the horrors of plantation life until she isn’t. The novel dives into the horrors that the proximity to whiteness bring to a woman, while also finding ways to remind the audience throughout just how privileged Pheby was in her life. I appreciate Johnson’s ability to find the balance of describing the horrors of life on the plantation, in the marches, and at the hands of slave owners while still managing to avoid romanticizing the life of house slaves. This book hit on so many dangers of the lives of enslaved persons, that it will likely anger you or at the minimum leave you quite unsettled.

I found myself quite frustrated at the relationship that existed between Pheby and Sissy, there was tension built and a valid, though very complicated, relationship that existed between the two that I felt could have been treated differently. Do we really believe Sissy would have had such mercy for Pheby and her children after Pheby refused to help her? I don’t think so. And I wondered why this dynamic wasn’t explored further in the text. I did appreciate that Johnson never romanticized the Jailer, even in the moments where one may of thought he was doing well by Pheby, he was never desirable and always a repulsive presence in the text.

Overall, this was a good read and I learned a bit from it. However, I don’t think I could read it again. The horrors of slavery and the trauma endured by people who were enslaved can be very triggering and upsetting to make the choice to indulge in the work again, doesn’t make much sense to me.

Content Warnings