Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Raízes Brancas

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one as I like the concept but found the plot itself to be anticlimactic. I definitely respect and appreciate the idea but didn’t enjoy it. I listened to this as an audiobook and found it to be an interesting mixture of history and satire. Evaristo, who is of Nigerian and British descent, describes the history of a slave, her family and her owners, with the clever twist that the roles of Britain and West Africa are reversed. In this book those who exploit, murder and rape have black skins, and the oppressed are white.

Because of the subject matter, it is a very heavy read at times and is something that will stay with you afterwards. However, I found that the novel lacked continuity as the story went on and instead of switching perspectives, I would have preferred to hear more of Doris’s story. Overall, the content was thought-provoking but as a story quite confusing and hard to follow.

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andreiaoh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

honestly I'd give this 3.75 but I'm not a fan of quarter stars so rounding down to 3.5.

I was slow to warm up to this book and it was not an easy read at all but incredibly powerful and Evaristo's writing was wonderful. I loved the mixed medium style of this novel from standard prose, to non-fiction-esque passages, posters, advertisements and diary entries and I think it definitely made this a little easier to digest, particularly around the half way point.

This novel was simultaneously exactly what I expected as well as took me off guard completely and it'll definitely be a story I'll be thinking about for a long time.

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misssophiereads's review against another edition

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5.0

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

Blonde Roots is the story of a young girl who is kidnapped, transported across the sea in horrendous conditions, then sold as a slave. She is first put to work as a companion and playmate for her master’s young daughter but when that girls dies she is sold. She later escapes (despite her master claiming he is a good master and her position an easy and privileged one), is tracked down and recaptured, whipped then shipped to a sugar plantation. Eventually she escapes to join a group of maroons on the island.

So far this sounds all fairly typical for story centred on slavery. Yet in this world whyte Europanes were enslaved by black Aphrikans. Bernardine Evaristo has cleverly subverted the typical slave narrative and associated racial and colonial tropes by reversing and inverting the race of the main players. She has drawn far and wide in both historical and geographical terms for her source material so the world in this book is not an exact negative of any one place or period in ours. Much clearly comes from nineteenth century plantations; other material possibly from more recent immigrant experiences. I had fun recognising echoes of classics including Roots and Heart of Darkness. The novel cleverly skewers and satirises such notions as beauty ideals, innate racial characteristics, and notions of civilised vs uncivilised by simply reversing the positions of the races. If anyone is in any doubt as to the absolute wrongness of slavery, racism and colonialism the role reversal of this book should promote discomfort and a radical rethink. Even the majority of readers are likely to find something in this sly subversive story which gives them a new perspective, brings them up short, or provokes new awareness.
This isn’t my favourite book by Bernardine Evaristo but I really enjoyed it for its fresh and clever take on slavery.

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kyras's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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annamontg's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

Loved this, Evaristo is quickly becoming one of my favourite characters. Cleverly written and it made me laugh several times, although it is also primarily a poignant reminder of the cruelty and violence of the transatlantic slave trade.

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asourceoffiction's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative tense fast-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

4.0

Imagine if the Transatlantic slave trade was reversed? Imagine Africans the masters and Europeans their slaves... That's what Evaristo has done in this brilliant satire. She is a master of building worlds and developing character and this book is so clever. It's harrowing, poetic and even funny while so cleverly subverting everything about the slave trade. Doris is given the name Omorenomwara, and on the rare occasions her 'Europane' name is used, it is alien and hard to pronounce. Familiar place names are brilliantly given 'Aphrikan' iterations but the geography is the broadly the same.

While reading I found myself hoping and wishing that levels of empathy would be the same regardless of the skin colour of those suffering. But knowing how white privilege is still so disappointingly prevalent, this is such a brilliant way to challenge perceptions of race and culture. It was also interesting to see that those forced into slavery still largely come from the same area (Europa in this world is geographically below Aphrika), perhaps as an example of the ludicrous, arbitrary distinctions that were used to justify this abhorrent practice - that one group thought themselves superior simply because of their position on the planet.

This is not an easy read, but it is so clever and such an important satire that encourages a fresh look at the history of the slave trade.

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evekstanley's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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