Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Yellow Wife

This is such an important book despite it being a work of fiction, what occurs to Pheby and the other characters (both enslaved & not) is all too real in American history. I loved Pheby’s constant reminder from her mother. “Slaves by name but not in their mind.” In spite of the circumstances not always being in her favor, she persevered. Pheby Dolores Brown is the daughter of Ruth, a medicinal enslaved woman and a white man (I’m assuming it’s either an enslaver or someone else that was white) So Pheby is seen as slightly better than due to John’s favoritism over the Brown women (this is their last name) Unfortunayely, we are met with tragedy early on and Pheby is left at the tender age of 18 to be sold / married off to a man she does not want to be. Turbulent years are ahead but Pheby rises to the top in between the heartbreaks and the pain. Trigger / content warnings - slavery, domestic & physical abuse, whipping, sickness, blood, dubious / questionable consent, mentions of sex,

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butle2em'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? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is a graphic depiction for what life was like for enslaved people. It took me a long time to read through it because I needed time to process the torture depicted between the pages. While this book is uncomfortable and horrifying, I think it is important that white people read responsibly written slave narratives (eg researched, historically factual, written by Black authors) in order to consider the world we inherited and our responsibility in changing that world for the better.

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nrogers_1030's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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? No

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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seph268's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

it’s a very heavy book. it was really hard for me to finish. the ending was lackluster, it didn’t really balance out the heaviness of the novel.

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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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bookxcupid6's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

Wow! I enjoyed This book thought it is very triggering because of how slavery is portrayed, how the white banked in joy at the misery of the black people become tell me why they were stacking chairs, setting up tables, lugging liquor, prepping food, blowing up” balloons, organizing games for the kids and instruments for the bandstand to celebrate like it’s a concert, not a flogging? It’s a show to them, an exposition of the power they want to hold on to badly.

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lexieellis13's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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