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samsnerdcorner's review against another edition
challenging
dark
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Before I start this review I'd like to mention, that I only read this book because I wanted to try out the recommendation feature of this website/app. I chose 10 books at random and this was the first one that I read. As you can see I didn't really like the recommendation.
I was actually really interested in this book. Racism, racehorses and following one family over multiple generations are usually topics that interest me. Sadly I had to figure out quite early, that the summary on the back of the book isn't exactly what is IN the book. The summary says, that the book is about Henrietta and Allmon who fall in love and then something happens blablabla. The thing is... it takes 3 chapters (the book consists of 6) until they even start to interact. The first three chapters are just tragic backstory. And, quite frankly, it wasn't interesting enough to last that long. My German copy is 900 pages long, 400 or more was just backstory. Not only was it too long, it also had absolutely no point to it. nd that leads me to the things that I actually hated about the book.
Quick disclaimer: I added very trigger that I could find in this book to the list on content warnings, just so you can be prepared. There is so much unnecessary racism, sexism, violence and abuse in tis book that straight up isn't justified. The author didn't even make the characters question it. This might count as a spoiler, but I'll say it anyway: ever single women in this book dies a tragic death (besides one that gets thrown out of her house and later has a one page long revenge plot. congrats.). If I wouldn't know that C.E. Morgan was female I would have thought that this book was written by a 50 year old men. The amount of internalized misogyny that this woman must have is INSANE. Not only do they all die but they also reduce themselves or get reduced to their body, noting more nothing else. Henrietta is described as having no sex appeal and therefore being strong and "not like other women". Allmons mom is deeply depressed and constantly gets blamed by her father because she can't keep a man. Actually, let's talk about her dad a little more. He's a priest (or something like that) and instead of, you know, doing priest things he constantly blames the people coming to him for their problems. Have I mentioned that C.E. Morgan has studied theology? Well, you can tell, have of the book is about god, the other half about sex. Sex also equals becoming an adult in this book, which a) is incredibly acephobic and ableist and b) super sexist. Last thing, that was really annoying to me: Storygraph recommend this as a book about race. It is written by a white woman and you can TELL omg. Literally every white character in this book is racist but no one ever directly calls them out for it. Instead in the end there's a "revenge" arc where a black character gets extremely violent. I don't know what Morgan wanted to happen when she wrote this, but I'd say it literally just further enforces racism because according to tis story "black people stupid and dangerous".
Now that we got the worst part out of the way, let's talk about the writing. Especially towards the end there are so many passages of nothing but meaningless "philosophical" or scientific gibberish. It adds NOTHING to the story, I've skim-read all of it. The descriptions of places where also so long but you could still not picture any of them. Morgan is also apparently not able to write in chronological order. On one page a character is 12, five pages later he says he's 5. What now? If your writing in a different order than chronological then atleast make it make sense.
Conclusion: Book that is way too long, filled with sexist and racist stereotypes, cliches and awful writing was somehow a finalist for the Pulitzer Price. Storygraph tried to give me a good recommendation and it sounded great in theory but the actual book was a desaster :/
I was actually really interested in this book. Racism, racehorses and following one family over multiple generations are usually topics that interest me. Sadly I had to figure out quite early, that the summary on the back of the book isn't exactly what is IN the book. The summary says, that the book is about Henrietta and Allmon who fall in love and then something happens blablabla. The thing is... it takes 3 chapters (the book consists of 6) until they even start to interact. The first three chapters are just tragic backstory. And, quite frankly, it wasn't interesting enough to last that long. My German copy is 900 pages long, 400 or more was just backstory. Not only was it too long, it also had absolutely no point to it. nd that leads me to the things that I actually hated about the book.
Quick disclaimer: I added very trigger that I could find in this book to the list on content warnings, just so you can be prepared. There is so much unnecessary racism, sexism, violence and abuse in tis book that straight up isn't justified. The author didn't even make the characters question it. This might count as a spoiler, but I'll say it anyway: ever single women in this book dies a tragic death (besides one that gets thrown out of her house and later has a one page long revenge plot. congrats.). If I wouldn't know that C.E. Morgan was female I would have thought that this book was written by a 50 year old men. The amount of internalized misogyny that this woman must have is INSANE. Not only do they all die but they also reduce themselves or get reduced to their body, noting more nothing else. Henrietta is described as having no sex appeal and therefore being strong and "not like other women". Allmons mom is deeply depressed and constantly gets blamed by her father because she can't keep a man. Actually, let's talk about her dad a little more. He's a priest (or something like that) and instead of, you know, doing priest things he constantly blames the people coming to him for their problems. Have I mentioned that C.E. Morgan has studied theology? Well, you can tell, have of the book is about god, the other half about sex. Sex also equals becoming an adult in this book, which a) is incredibly acephobic and ableist and b) super sexist. Last thing, that was really annoying to me: Storygraph recommend this as a book about race. It is written by a white woman and you can TELL omg. Literally every white character in this book is racist but no one ever directly calls them out for it. Instead in the end there's a "revenge" arc where a black character gets extremely violent. I don't know what Morgan wanted to happen when she wrote this, but I'd say it literally just further enforces racism because according to tis story "black people stupid and dangerous".
Now that we got the worst part out of the way, let's talk about the writing. Especially towards the end there are so many passages of nothing but meaningless "philosophical" or scientific gibberish. It adds NOTHING to the story, I've skim-read all of it. The descriptions of places where also so long but you could still not picture any of them. Morgan is also apparently not able to write in chronological order. On one page a character is 12, five pages later he says he's 5. What now? If your writing in a different order than chronological then atleast make it make sense.
Conclusion: Book that is way too long, filled with sexist and racist stereotypes, cliches and awful writing was somehow a finalist for the Pulitzer Price. Storygraph tried to give me a good recommendation and it sounded great in theory but the actual book was a desaster :/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Suicide
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