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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
I had to stop reading this book six different times to read six other books, but I never considered not finishing it.
brilliant. I'm not good at writing about reading,but I loved this..
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
This book was heavy. Really really heavy. It was so worth the read and part of me wants to poke around and see if some place like Delicious Foods ever existed but part of me wants to remain ignorant about that being possible.
The story begins with Eddie. Both of his hands have been recently amputated. I mean, so recently that the stumps are bound with rags and cords. Eddie is driving to Minnesota where he hopes he will find his Aunt.
Eddie, eventually, begins to build a life in Minnesota. He becomes a handyman (without hands) and leverages people curiosity and pity into a comfortable life. He doesn’t want to talk about what happened to his hands before Minnesota, but of course, we get to find out.
Darlene and Nat meet in college. Nat is dating one of Darlene’s sorority sisters, but that doesn’t stop them from entering into a relationship. When the sorority sister finds out, she curses Nat and Darlene who are ostracized and forced to leave school. They head to Ovis, Louisiana and Darlene becomes pregnant. They live a happy life until Nat is brutally murdered. Darlene blames herself and eventually turns to smoking crack, something she names Scotty.
Scotty prevents her from growing. It prevents her from being a mother to Nat. Scotty forces Darlene to turn to prostitution and one night she’s approached by a minibus and a woman named Jackie offers Darlene an opportunity. A place to live and do honest work for pay. A place she’ll be fed and cared for and the didn’t care how much time Darlene spent with Scotty. After promising to allow Darlene to call home (she’s left Eddie who is only 11 on his own in Houston where he spends MONTHS searching for his mother) Darlene never calls and Delicious Foods is nothing more than a labor camp sprinkled with crack rock.
When Eddie finally finds his mother, he gets wrapped up in Delicious Foods as well before they make a daring escape attempt.
Scotty’s chapters were fascinating and the entire book while hard and brutal, was excellent.
The story begins with Eddie. Both of his hands have been recently amputated. I mean, so recently that the stumps are bound with rags and cords. Eddie is driving to Minnesota where he hopes he will find his Aunt.
Eddie, eventually, begins to build a life in Minnesota. He becomes a handyman (without hands) and leverages people curiosity and pity into a comfortable life. He doesn’t want to talk about what happened to his hands before Minnesota, but of course, we get to find out.
Darlene and Nat meet in college. Nat is dating one of Darlene’s sorority sisters, but that doesn’t stop them from entering into a relationship. When the sorority sister finds out, she curses Nat and Darlene who are ostracized and forced to leave school. They head to Ovis, Louisiana and Darlene becomes pregnant. They live a happy life until Nat is brutally murdered. Darlene blames herself and eventually turns to smoking crack, something she names Scotty.
Scotty prevents her from growing. It prevents her from being a mother to Nat. Scotty forces Darlene to turn to prostitution and one night she’s approached by a minibus and a woman named Jackie offers Darlene an opportunity. A place to live and do honest work for pay. A place she’ll be fed and cared for and the didn’t care how much time Darlene spent with Scotty. After promising to allow Darlene to call home (she’s left Eddie who is only 11 on his own in Houston where he spends MONTHS searching for his mother) Darlene never calls and Delicious Foods is nothing more than a labor camp sprinkled with crack rock.
When Eddie finally finds his mother, he gets wrapped up in Delicious Foods as well before they make a daring escape attempt.
Scotty’s chapters were fascinating and the entire book while hard and brutal, was excellent.
3.5. Rounded up because of the quality of the writing
I didn't know anything at all about Delicious Foods when I started reading it, and I think it's a book that really benefits from going in blind, so I won't say too much about it here. The book uses a non-traditional narrator in a way that feels jarring and difficult at first, but it works well with the story and ends up not feeling gimmicky at all.
The book opens with a teenage black boy, Eddie, whose hands have recently been cut off at the wrists. He's driving a stolen car from Louisiana to Minnesota, where he believes his aunt now lives. When he finds her, he's evasive about what happened to him. He talks about needing to go back to Louisiana to rescue his mother, but he doesn't seem eager to do so. We spend a little time with Eddie in Minnesota, and then the story turns backward to a younger Eddie and explains what happened to him and to his mother.
The characters sometimes feel a little too much like caricatures, but on the whole I found Delicious Foods gripping and was glad I read it.
The book opens with a teenage black boy, Eddie, whose hands have recently been cut off at the wrists. He's driving a stolen car from Louisiana to Minnesota, where he believes his aunt now lives. When he finds her, he's evasive about what happened to him. He talks about needing to go back to Louisiana to rescue his mother, but he doesn't seem eager to do so. We spend a little time with Eddie in Minnesota, and then the story turns backward to a younger Eddie and explains what happened to him and to his mother.
The characters sometimes feel a little too much like caricatures, but on the whole I found Delicious Foods gripping and was glad I read it.
For some reason this one was hard for me to review.
Hannaham presents a unique commentary on modern debt slavery, racism and the devastating effects of drug abuse on families and on low-income communities.
The Good
-Scotty. Alternating chapters were narrated by crack cocaine. Really creative plot device to have most of Darlene's story narrated by a controlled substance. The NYT characterizes Scotty as a cross between Katt Williams and the devil himself. Very apt description! At times Scotty was hilarious, at times manipulative and at other times even astute. I think Hannaham did a great job here. The voice was spot on.
-The opening chapter was riveting. I tore through it wanting to read more about how Eddie's hands got cut off but we don't learn the source of the accident until the end. Which felt anticlimactic and was told in a scattered way.
-I found out from another GR reviewer and through subsequent research that the premise for the book was based on real life events of debt slavery on agricultural farms (mainly, though, of Hispanic rather than black workers). Learned something new.
The Bad
-For some reason I couldn't connect with the characters. They felt a bit hollow to me and I'm not sure why. I did feel Eddie's acute desperation and longing throughout the book to gain his mother's attention and affection. Those emotions were subtle yet clearly present in Eddie's actions.
-Some of the novel felt disjointed in its writing. We move back and forth throughout time from the late 70s through the mid-90s (which I was able to glean based on various cultural references). I thought the flashbacks to Darlene's life "pre-Scotty" and understanding the horrific murder which leads to her grief and escapism through drugs was well done.
-I thought too much time was spent at Delicious Foods introducing new characters and focusing on the misery of farm life which got a little redundant. Also a lot of the commentary back and forth between Sirius, Darlene, TT, Michelle and others got a little boring. It was like this sucks. We should escape but where will we go? I don't know let's hit this crack rock. Only two failed attempts were made to escape by the collective group. I suppose this was meant to explain how Delicious (and the drugs) had such a forceful mental hold on the workers.
A minor gripe but some of the descriptions of the scenery went on for pages. Especially the mention of grackles. It was like grackles, grackles, grackles. I get the birds were supposed to be symbolic in some way but they kept popping up literally everywhere.
-I wanted to know more about Bethella and Darlene's underlying relationship. As sisters they had an obviously fractured relationship but it wasn't really explored beyond Darlene's drug use.
The Ugly
-The middle part of the book felt a bit slow and the ending anticlimactic. Especially the circumstances around Eddie's hands and the resolution with Darlene and the Fusiliers. Lots of unanswered questions.
Overall solid 3/5 stars.
Hannaham presents a unique commentary on modern debt slavery, racism and the devastating effects of drug abuse on families and on low-income communities.
The Good
-Scotty. Alternating chapters were narrated by crack cocaine. Really creative plot device to have most of Darlene's story narrated by a controlled substance. The NYT characterizes Scotty as a cross between Katt Williams and the devil himself. Very apt description! At times Scotty was hilarious, at times manipulative and at other times even astute. I think Hannaham did a great job here. The voice was spot on.
-The opening chapter was riveting. I tore through it wanting to read more about how Eddie's hands got cut off but we don't learn the source of the accident until the end. Which felt anticlimactic and was told in a scattered way.
-I found out from another GR reviewer and through subsequent research that the premise for the book was based on real life events of debt slavery on agricultural farms (mainly, though, of Hispanic rather than black workers). Learned something new.
The Bad
-For some reason I couldn't connect with the characters. They felt a bit hollow to me and I'm not sure why. I did feel Eddie's acute desperation and longing throughout the book to gain his mother's attention and affection. Those emotions were subtle yet clearly present in Eddie's actions.
-Some of the novel felt disjointed in its writing. We move back and forth throughout time from the late 70s through the mid-90s (which I was able to glean based on various cultural references). I thought the flashbacks to Darlene's life "pre-Scotty" and understanding the horrific murder which leads to her grief and escapism through drugs was well done.
-I thought too much time was spent at Delicious Foods introducing new characters and focusing on the misery of farm life which got a little redundant. Also a lot of the commentary back and forth between Sirius, Darlene, TT, Michelle and others got a little boring. It was like this sucks. We should escape but where will we go? I don't know let's hit this crack rock. Only two failed attempts were made to escape by the collective group. I suppose this was meant to explain how Delicious (and the drugs) had such a forceful mental hold on the workers.
A minor gripe but some of the descriptions of the scenery went on for pages. Especially the mention of grackles. It was like grackles, grackles, grackles. I get the birds were supposed to be symbolic in some way but they kept popping up literally everywhere.
-I wanted to know more about Bethella and Darlene's underlying relationship. As sisters they had an obviously fractured relationship but it wasn't really explored beyond Darlene's drug use.
The Ugly
-The middle part of the book felt a bit slow and the ending anticlimactic. Especially the circumstances around Eddie's hands and the resolution with Darlene and the Fusiliers. Lots of unanswered questions.
Overall solid 3/5 stars.
I liked this almost in spite of itself. The story was fascinating, even if the narration-by-drugs was a little much. I was even willing to forgive the lack of quotation marks because, well, you know, it was narrated by drugs.
Couldn't get past the "crack-as-narrator" device.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-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