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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
4.25. writing was excellent just thought it was slow
Listened to the audiobook. I enjoyed the narration and felt like I knew the characters by the end. It went on a little too long for my liking. Beautifully written.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was too slow to keep my attention but the narrator was amazing! To me it just seemed to never end. I loved the start and then it just kept going…
An exquisite debut novel! I even created a note in my phone to jot down some excerpts, which is something I've never done before. Nathan Harris has such a way with words; he can somehow even make descriptions of horrible things sound beautiful. Here are some examples of his carefully crafted story:
"They sat in silence, and George found their aversion to speaking welcome. Other than his wife, the seemed like the only individuals he'd come upon in some time who would rather leave a moment naked than tar it with wasted words."
"...the hands hardened quickly under the pain of picking, while feet, no matter how protected, would always find ways to ache from the hours spent holding up a broken body."
"And it grew clear that the only path to a life worth living would be found elsewhere, where they might not have more but could not possibly have less."
"..each day of each year, a man might imagine a tree in his mind. The tree, upon doing good in the world, could grow strong and thick, but with every poor decision, rot would start to sprout - gnarled roots at its base, limp branches that snapped with the lightest touch. At the end of any given period - a month, a year - it was wise to consider the growth of one's tree, and the decisions you had made that led it there. It was yours to let grow or die."
"You know," George said, "when I look in the mirror in the morning, I see a miserable old bastard looking back at me. Yet when I see you, I take great comfort, knowing how much progress I have left to make on that same path."
"...it dawned on him that there was less to fear than he'd once imagined, which was maybe a truth he'd long wished to believe - that all danger carried the faint trace of comfort, all wrongs the hint of what may be right. How else to explain a world of cruelty that had also carried in it the great joy of watching his mother at the mercy of Little James's fiddle on a Sunday afternoon, the miracle of a fresh tick mattress, the sweetness of water after a day spent picking in the fields?"
"When night fell the moon cast an exclamation upon Majesty's Palace, shafts of lunar light touching its windows and bending to the earth beneath them with such illumination that the house appeared to be alive."
"He did not know how many days passed between that night and the whipping that would follow, the breaking of his jaw, but it was some years, distant enough in time for him to imagine that each lash of the cowhide, each blow to his body, amounted to a day's passing since his sublime trespass upon the fountain, yet near enough for him to believe that he was hardly a random victim sacrificed for the runaways and was instead guilty of a crime, that of a child wishing to play in a world that did not belong to him. If such were the case, every drop of amusement he had gathered that night in the fountain would be drained from him in the weight of blood."
"They sat in silence, and George found their aversion to speaking welcome. Other than his wife, the seemed like the only individuals he'd come upon in some time who would rather leave a moment naked than tar it with wasted words."
"...the hands hardened quickly under the pain of picking, while feet, no matter how protected, would always find ways to ache from the hours spent holding up a broken body."
"And it grew clear that the only path to a life worth living would be found elsewhere, where they might not have more but could not possibly have less."
"..each day of each year, a man might imagine a tree in his mind. The tree, upon doing good in the world, could grow strong and thick, but with every poor decision, rot would start to sprout - gnarled roots at its base, limp branches that snapped with the lightest touch. At the end of any given period - a month, a year - it was wise to consider the growth of one's tree, and the decisions you had made that led it there. It was yours to let grow or die."
"You know," George said, "when I look in the mirror in the morning, I see a miserable old bastard looking back at me. Yet when I see you, I take great comfort, knowing how much progress I have left to make on that same path."
"...it dawned on him that there was less to fear than he'd once imagined, which was maybe a truth he'd long wished to believe - that all danger carried the faint trace of comfort, all wrongs the hint of what may be right. How else to explain a world of cruelty that had also carried in it the great joy of watching his mother at the mercy of Little James's fiddle on a Sunday afternoon, the miracle of a fresh tick mattress, the sweetness of water after a day spent picking in the fields?"
"When night fell the moon cast an exclamation upon Majesty's Palace, shafts of lunar light touching its windows and bending to the earth beneath them with such illumination that the house appeared to be alive."
"He did not know how many days passed between that night and the whipping that would follow, the breaking of his jaw, but it was some years, distant enough in time for him to imagine that each lash of the cowhide, each blow to his body, amounted to a day's passing since his sublime trespass upon the fountain, yet near enough for him to believe that he was hardly a random victim sacrificed for the runaways and was instead guilty of a crime, that of a child wishing to play in a world that did not belong to him. If such were the case, every drop of amusement he had gathered that night in the fountain would be drained from him in the weight of blood."
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Kind of a white saviour book, kind of an unrealistic narrative in terms of the limits of white cruelty/men's allowance of women's power in reconstruction era south, kind of a fairy tale in terms of endings.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes