Reviews tagging 'Racism'

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

20 reviews

nadia's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

I was so excited for this book. I thought it might end up being my favourite out of the Women's Prize Nonfiction shortlist. The concept intrigued me!

Alas, I'm so incredibly sad to report that I found this book incredibly hard to get through. I really struggled. The book read like an academic paper, with a lot of repetition and conjecture. This speculative style of history just didn't work for me. I felt so detached from the central characters of the book because of it.

I'm especially sad that I didn't like All That She Carried given the important subject matter. I wanted to rate this book higher just because of the topic, but given my reading experience I just couldn't.

Final Women's Prize 2024 Non-Fiction Shortlist rankings:

1. How to Say Babylon
2. Code Dependent
3. A Flat Place  
4. Thunderclap
5. Doppelganger
6. All That She Carried

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Slavery

amalauna's review

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual violence, and Slavery

bunceyyy's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Classism, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Child abuse, Child death, Kidnapping, Racial slurs, Racism, Trafficking, Violence, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Colonisation

nuthatch's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Racism, and Slavery

bookmaddie's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Violence

libkatem's review

emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

5.0

Tiya Miles is the best. No one approaches history quite like her. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Slavery, and Racism

It's a book about ties that bind, against all odds.

kerri_m's review

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Part object study, part social history, Miles masterfully applies historical records and extant evidence to support a constructed look at the potential lives of the three women we see a glimpse of in Ashley's Sack. I think it would capture public interest and academics equally. The book, or at least the introduction and ending essays, should be required reading for every archival student and researcher.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Slavery, Racism, and Sexual violence

singout's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

A beautiful and detailed rendering of how a sack, recently discovered in an auction, was found to have been embroidered by a Black woman who named the contents that has been given to  her grandmother as an enslaved child, with her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s first names. The analysis of the significance of all the continents, along with the contextualization of them in Black American history, is a very well done. It does move a bit slowly at with perhaps more detail or sidetracking than some would like.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Racism, and Child abuse

atamano's review

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Racism, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Slavery, and Violence

book_fish's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

This book is like a museum talk by a really smart professor. Lot of cool info, but definitely wordy. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Racial slurs, Colonisation, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, and Slavery