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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
slow-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:
No
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A really interesting, visceral exploration of slavery. Beautiful writing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
No one does it like Jesmyn Ward. A generational talent.
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
dark
emotional
sad
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:
No
Brilliant, haunting. I loved the focus on the strength of women, the connection that binds them. This was painful and poetic, and Ward really has an incredible talent for weaving a narrative. 4 stars
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Jesmyn Ward is a force. I envision her like I do Aza, from this book: storm, wind, a searing unsettling of earth. And this, her first book written after great loss (her partner died right as the world shut down for Covid) reflects her raw wounds and grief.
I just didn't connect as I did to Salvage the Bones or Sing, Unburied, Sing , where I was enveloped in the worlds of Boix Sauvage and fell in love with the characters that live on the Gulf Coast. There was a lot more magical realism here, which makes me squirm (and not in a good way), and the ghosts had to handle of lot of exposition and explanation, more than Annis did. For Annis, just a bleak existence and steely survival-- a formidable force, powered by grief, but exhausting. For both she and the reader.
Two things I wonder after reading this book, and they sound weirdly petty and odd even to me: do all enslaved people carry with them the histories of their people, and, so,can we feel their stories, too? Do all of those women in that stinking pen have their ghosts and ancestors there too? Where are their stories? Our Inferno must be very crowded. And also-- my relationship with my mother seems a trifle compared with the bond between Annis and her mother, with Annis' mother and Aza. Is that because those bonds are literally threaded with life or death rather than just, love?
I just didn't connect as I did to Salvage the Bones or Sing, Unburied, Sing , where I was enveloped in the worlds of Boix Sauvage and fell in love with the characters that live on the Gulf Coast. There was a lot more magical realism here, which makes me squirm (and not in a good way), and the ghosts had to handle of lot of exposition and explanation, more than Annis did. For Annis, just a bleak existence and steely survival-- a formidable force, powered by grief, but exhausting. For both she and the reader.
Two things I wonder after reading this book, and they sound weirdly petty and odd even to me: do all enslaved people carry with them the histories of their people, and, so,can we feel their stories, too? Do all of those women in that stinking pen have their ghosts and ancestors there too? Where are their stories? Our Inferno must be very crowded. And also-- my relationship with my mother seems a trifle compared with the bond between Annis and her mother, with Annis' mother and Aza. Is that because those bonds are literally threaded with life or death rather than just, love?