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susannah_knox's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This book is written in alternating perspectives between Ruth, a Black labor and delivery nurse, Turk, a violent white supremacist, and Kennedy, a white public defender. The plot pulled me along, but I found the writing wooden - the author's attempt to inhabit a Black woman experiencing discrimination did not feel authentic, and her attempt to inhabit a white supremacist was even more painfully fake. The book is also filled with gratuitously maudlin back stories, a punch list of unnecessary side plots so the author can check off every point she wanted to make about race in America, and some really painful inaccuracies. The central plot point (no spoilers here as it's revealed in the blurb) was absurd: a nurse would never hesitate to aid an infant in distress just because she had been ordered not to touch the baby by white supremacist parents. As a former public defender, I found another important plot point (also in the blurb) - that a defense attorney would insist on not bringing up race in a trial on those facts - equally absurd. And there were smaller things... For example, the idea that a person in Kennedy's life circumstances, in this day and age, would say something idiotic like "I don't see color" is also ridiculous. And then at the end she has the audacity to lecture her Black client about the difference between equality and equity to win back her trust and then they become besties? I couldn't believe what I was reading. Last and also least, it does not take 90 minutes by bus to get from anywhere in Harlem to the UWS. Seriously, if it takes you that long, get off the bus and walk to the nearest subway station on the west side. What on earth. I give the author some points for a satisfying ending, which I don't see often enough in "serious" books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Child death, Hate crime, Medical content, Racism, Rape, and Suicide
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