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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book was the perfect balance of learning, accountability, and story. I was invested in the characters and will continue to process through the different perspectives that will inform my own life.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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:
Yes
This book is so well done. I love the differing perspectives coming from women who have been friends for 30 years. I love getting a peek into both heads, and I love that it is a wonderful bridge especially for women who have diverse friendships but have not been able to amble over the racial divide in a subtantive way.
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This is a great book club book-lots of topical discussion.
Ugh.
I think this was well-intentioned. I think it was supposed to be an examination of the midlife crisis of a from-childhood friendship, how once one is truly into adult living, has made some mistakes and some choices that are very different from what the other friend chose, when life has handed each of you very different setbacks, how hard it is to fulfill the role of friendship in the way the other expects and needs you to, and how hard it is to face the idea of a reckoning to reset the friendship to the new realities.
I think there was also excitement about the idea of taking it into Cultural Relevance territory by creating additional tension between two lifelong best friends of different races who find themselves looking at a tragic community experience with entirely different viewpoints, each of which is high-stakes. What if the black friend and the white friend are each viewing the death of a local black teenager due to yet another too-quick shooting by white cops—what if one of the cops is the husband of the white woman? And genuinely not coming from a place of unconscious bias, but of following training to the letter? And there’s video evidence?
The premise isn’t the problem. It’s the execution.
(Well, maybe, the premise is a little the problem, because that coincidence of one’s husband being the cop who might end up in prison is just a little too dramatic.)
But the execution is a lot of the problem.
The co-authors are at least professional colleagues who participate in a podcast on race and society. Each has a lot of media experience. It feels as though they have exploited that “in.” The writing is breathless but also thoughtless, with howlers of error around the legal landscape when charging someone for murder (supposedly, these officers would be indicted by a grand jury for first degree murder, ridiculously far from the facts of the case, and when one is brought to court to enter a plea, the D.A. brings up two lesser murder charges instead, all for the same crime). Add to this, absolutely awful metaphors and similes, overdescription of action that then contradicts itself, scenes that feel pulled from reruns airing in the background while pounding out the requisite number of pages for weekly deadlines.
Just, ugh.
I think this was well-intentioned. I think it was supposed to be an examination of the midlife crisis of a from-childhood friendship, how once one is truly into adult living, has made some mistakes and some choices that are very different from what the other friend chose, when life has handed each of you very different setbacks, how hard it is to fulfill the role of friendship in the way the other expects and needs you to, and how hard it is to face the idea of a reckoning to reset the friendship to the new realities.
I think there was also excitement about the idea of taking it into Cultural Relevance territory by creating additional tension between two lifelong best friends of different races who find themselves looking at a tragic community experience with entirely different viewpoints, each of which is high-stakes. What if the black friend and the white friend are each viewing the death of a local black teenager due to yet another too-quick shooting by white cops—what if one of the cops is the husband of the white woman? And genuinely not coming from a place of unconscious bias, but of following training to the letter? And there’s video evidence?
The premise isn’t the problem. It’s the execution.
(Well, maybe, the premise is a little the problem, because that coincidence of one’s husband being the cop who might end up in prison is just a little too dramatic.)
But the execution is a lot of the problem.
The co-authors are at least professional colleagues who participate in a podcast on race and society. Each has a lot of media experience. It feels as though they have exploited that “in.” The writing is breathless but also thoughtless, with howlers of error around the legal landscape when charging someone for murder (supposedly, these officers would be indicted by a grand jury for first degree murder, ridiculously far from the facts of the case, and when one is brought to court to enter a plea, the D.A. brings up two lesser murder charges instead, all for the same crime). Add to this, absolutely awful metaphors and similes, overdescription of action that then contradicts itself, scenes that feel pulled from reruns airing in the background while pounding out the requisite number of pages for weekly deadlines.
Just, ugh.
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes