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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
An amazing work by a super talented author, Wonderful work to combine the spy thriller story with outstanding social commentary.
This book was both a page turner and thought provoking. Both literary and a thriller. The best of all worlds. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Wow, what a great read. Wilkinson establishes a very trustworthy, brilliant, reliable narrator who tells a compelling, richly multidimensional story that addresses complex family relations, romantic love and attraction, race and racism, gender, social change, politics, and more. This book very thoughtfully covers a lot of emotional and sociopolitical ground in an effective format that makes the reader consider a variety of situations from multiple perspectives, including from different perspectives of time (e.g. present, hindsight, etc).
I had such high hopes for this story! Black female FBI agent in the 1980s in an espionage thriller, sign me up.
I started reading the book, then found the pace and wording a little confusing (The main character has written this account for her sons - she shifts from saying things like grandma to the actual name). Couple that with having to finish it for book club, I decided to do my first audiobook. I listened to the audiobook at twice the speed and got about halfway through...there was still none of the exciting spy action that I was promised in the blurb. So I quit.
There was too much detail in the backstory. I just wanted her to get on with it and get to the case. I get that there’s character building but there was just too much going on: an absentee mother/dead sister/dead father of her sons/immigrant parents. Maybe it all came after I stopped but by then it was too late for me.
I started reading the book, then found the pace and wording a little confusing (The main character has written this account for her sons - she shifts from saying things like grandma to the actual name). Couple that with having to finish it for book club, I decided to do my first audiobook. I listened to the audiobook at twice the speed and got about halfway through...there was still none of the exciting spy action that I was promised in the blurb. So I quit.
There was too much detail in the backstory. I just wanted her to get on with it and get to the case. I get that there’s character building but there was just too much going on: an absentee mother/dead sister/dead father of her sons/immigrant parents. Maybe it all came after I stopped but by then it was too late for me.
This was not the exciting spy novel I thought it was going to be. It read like a biography with flash backs to various time periods and flash forwards. I found the use of the letter writing to drive the story annoying- in effect too much “telling” and not enough “showing.”
I just want to know how she is going to find and kill Ross. But also why he hasn't killed her already. A spy who goes to her mom's house to hide out, then moves back to where she grew up. Yes, that makes total sense when someone is after you.
3.5 stars. Liked this a lot, wish there had been more story. Definitely not a traditional spy novel, in part b/c the protagonist is WOC in an unwelcoming field. Felt like a lot of backstory b/c of this and b/c the narrator was writing the story to her young sons, so it really only got exciting in the last hour or so and then it was over. A lot of time was spent on the events/history leading up to the drama/intrigue, all of it necessary, so I guess I'm just wishing there was more drama/intrigue. :-)
I really liked the first part of the book leading up to the conflict and then I somewhat lost interest. I’m not sure why. Perhaps things were not developed enough to get a good sense of her actions, but overall it was good. And Bahni Turpin is always a great narrator.
A slow read about a black woman who wants to work as a spy and is assigned to do undercover work in Africa. The story of how she got there and her experience trying to advance in the agency and the sexism she met was interesting but I somewhat lost interest. At times they novel felt like a non fiction reporting on her employment history. Her time in Africa was the most riveting, her involvement with the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso and her ultimate revolutionary acts and escape was the best part of the novel. The underlying story of her sister, mother, father, and sons was a backdrop for what she did but not one that kept me very interested.
I really enjoyed it. I found it very interesting although there were times it was a little tedious. I wondered how accurately the history was portrayed although it didn’t really matter from my perspective. And I enjoyed the politics of the story line.