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jessicaaaaaaa's review against another edition
I got up to page 70 before deciding to DNF this one. I really wanted to like it, and I really wish I had found the patience to keep reading, but it's just too experimental for my taste.
glassesgirl79's review against another edition
4.0
This was a hard book for me to finish because of how much relevant this book is today in regards to race relations. The novel opens with the narrator having trouble swallowing and lying on the ground. After this opening scene of the novel, the reader is pulled back and forth from the narrator’s past to the present day.
I feel that if you are not a person of color, when you read this book, you may be shocked by what is written, find it unbelievable, or maybe even try to justify the racism the narrator experiences as somehow her fault. As a black woman, I feel that if you are a person of color reading this book, it will bring tears to your eyes at times because at some point, you will recount your our personal experiences with racism and sympathize with the experiences of racism pelted on the unnamed narrator.
Although the narrator, Mother, is born in America and raised in America, since she is Bengali-American, her Americaness is constantly being questioned by others. Living in rural Georgia means that as a child, she is often being asked “where are you from? No, really, where are you from?” From a young age, she is often reminded that she doesn’t look like everyone else and therefore she is not a real American and opportunities to have friends and participate in sports are closed to her.
Mother attends college, she meets a friendly white man that she eventually marries and gives birth to three daughters. As Mother becomes older, she has become a stay at home mom and her husband is constantly flying for business trips so she is left to raise her children alone and endure racial microagressions on a daily basis.
It was personally frustrating how many times one of the daughters would come to Mother with a racist experience and would ask her if they should tell her husband to which Mother responds no. I think over time, Mother realizes that if she says something to her husband about their angered towards her and the girls, he won’t understand why she thinks it’s a big deal or he may not believe her.
This novel broke my heart repeatedly by the amount of weight Mother carried by being the wall protecting her daughters from a world which hates them for their brown skin. With each racist experience that happened to Mother, the wall that she had carefully built began to chip away until one final incident occurs at her house that pushes her over the edge. Overall, this book is a heavy but worthwhile read in that it provides a glimpse of the tightrope that people of color have to walk on a daily basis to survive in a country that doesn’t want them here.
I feel that if you are not a person of color, when you read this book, you may be shocked by what is written, find it unbelievable, or maybe even try to justify the racism the narrator experiences as somehow her fault. As a black woman, I feel that if you are a person of color reading this book, it will bring tears to your eyes at times because at some point, you will recount your our personal experiences with racism and sympathize with the experiences of racism pelted on the unnamed narrator.
Although the narrator, Mother, is born in America and raised in America, since she is Bengali-American, her Americaness is constantly being questioned by others. Living in rural Georgia means that as a child, she is often being asked “where are you from? No, really, where are you from?” From a young age, she is often reminded that she doesn’t look like everyone else and therefore she is not a real American and opportunities to have friends and participate in sports are closed to her.
Mother attends college, she meets a friendly white man that she eventually marries and gives birth to three daughters. As Mother becomes older, she has become a stay at home mom and her husband is constantly flying for business trips so she is left to raise her children alone and endure racial microagressions on a daily basis.
It was personally frustrating how many times one of the daughters would come to Mother with a racist experience and would ask her if they should tell her husband to which Mother responds no. I think over time, Mother realizes that if she says something to her husband about their angered towards her and the girls, he won’t understand why she thinks it’s a big deal or he may not believe her.
This novel broke my heart repeatedly by the amount of weight Mother carried by being the wall protecting her daughters from a world which hates them for their brown skin. With each racist experience that happened to Mother, the wall that she had carefully built began to chip away until one final incident occurs at her house that pushes her over the edge. Overall, this book is a heavy but worthwhile read in that it provides a glimpse of the tightrope that people of color have to walk on a daily basis to survive in a country that doesn’t want them here.
harmless_old_lady's review against another edition
5.0
The gentle way the author confronts every single indignity, injustice, slight, injury to herself, her children, her home, her jam-packed, overflowing life and absent husband is astonishing and makes me want to scream! But she doesn't scream, protest, rise up, contradict, sputter or flip out...until she does. Such a vivid adventure into the skin of another person. It makes me want to condemn and forgive myself and everyone else.
thinkblue's review
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
clairewords's review against another edition
5.0
What a unique read, like flashes of a life, past, near present, present.
Mother lies bleeding on her suburban driveway in a quiet neighbourhood, shot by police.
Her hero (husband) may or may not be present.
She recalls growing up in the South, where she was born, the questions nevertheless about where they came from followed soon after by, go back where you came from, American born and raised, her beauty unappreciated, her talent undervalued, her car pulled over relentlessly.
We experience her helplessness and the progression of her dying state, lying there, witness to the banter of the police around her.
Mother of three girls, a constantly travelling and inattentive husband, who shares not her ethnicity, seems not to understand the impact it has on her life in the community; 'be nice' he says.
Snippets of her hurried life as she juggles everything, a job, a home, children, elderly parents
The memory of their dog, Greta, come back to life
Maybe it starts when...
Just maybe she changes the day when...
Perhaps she sinks into the muck of life the day that...
And then there are those Barbies
Startling, insightful prose in an unconventional form, weaves tapestry of a family and one woman who tries to navigate a culture she was born into but not of, doing her best, confronting a reality that doesn't want to accept her as she is, that judges her without knowing, that wants to put her in her place.
All this through demonstrations of flashes of her life, not a linear narrative, it's a picture building episodic creation of aspects of a life, in riveting prose, a portrait of Mother in hues of reds and blues.
Mother lies bleeding on her suburban driveway in a quiet neighbourhood, shot by police.
Her hero (husband) may or may not be present.
She recalls growing up in the South, where she was born, the questions nevertheless about where they came from followed soon after by, go back where you came from, American born and raised, her beauty unappreciated, her talent undervalued, her car pulled over relentlessly.
We experience her helplessness and the progression of her dying state, lying there, witness to the banter of the police around her.
Mother of three girls, a constantly travelling and inattentive husband, who shares not her ethnicity, seems not to understand the impact it has on her life in the community; 'be nice' he says.
Snippets of her hurried life as she juggles everything, a job, a home, children, elderly parents
The memory of their dog, Greta, come back to life
Maybe it starts when...
Just maybe she changes the day when...
Perhaps she sinks into the muck of life the day that...
And then there are those Barbies
Startling, insightful prose in an unconventional form, weaves tapestry of a family and one woman who tries to navigate a culture she was born into but not of, doing her best, confronting a reality that doesn't want to accept her as she is, that judges her without knowing, that wants to put her in her place.
All this through demonstrations of flashes of her life, not a linear narrative, it's a picture building episodic creation of aspects of a life, in riveting prose, a portrait of Mother in hues of reds and blues.
quilly14's review against another edition
4.0
Mother, the American-born daughter of Bengali immigrants is bleeding out in her driveway. She's been shot by the police.
As she lies bleeding, we are whisked through her flashes of thought, from her childhood Barbies, to her recently deceased dog Greta, her middle daughter's bullies, and much more.
This is a fantastic novel. By the time we get to the circumstances of the shooting, they are all the more tragic because we feel like we know Mother.
Another plus is the fact that the novel flies by. Each of Mother's scattered thoughts is its own "chapter," which leads to a ton of breaks in the narrative.
rachaelsreadingnook's review
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
pantsyreads's review against another edition
4.0
After the police raid her home and she's shot, the protagonist (simply called The Mother) finds herself reflecting on her life and everything that led her to that moment. Briefly following her upbringing and focusing on her married life in the American South, The Atlas of Reds and Blues chronicles the racism The Mother faces being a 2nd generation American to Bengali immigrant parents.
I enjoyed this novel a lot more than I initially thought I would. It piqued my interest because the autobiographical aspect (the author was the victim of a baseless police raid) and I'm always interested in #ownvoices novels, especially from WPOC. However, I've had a lot of hit-and-miss reading experiences with literary fiction and I was wary that the experimental writing style would be off-putting.
However, I'm happy to say that the writing style is really what made this a winner for me. I've discovered from reading other reviews that Laskar is also a published poet and it's evident in her prose. I listened to this on audio and the narrator did an amazing job of reading Laskar's stylized prose, giving it a beautiful cadence and rhythm.
There's not much of a plot--the story is focused on shining a light on the second generation immigration experience and how this affects the main character. There's a focus on motherhood (probably evident, given that the MC's only referred to as The Mother) and I liked how Laskar compares/contrasts The Mother's experience growing up with her children's (spoiler: there's not much of a difference at all). The blatant racism The Mother experiences is in equal parts enraging, baffling, and almost unbelievable (but you know it's not and you know it happens). While there's not much plot, there is a lot of meat to the story. It's short, but affecting.
This is one of the standout books I've read this year. I hope Laskar continues to publish fiction titles and I look forward to see what she comes out with next.
I enjoyed this novel a lot more than I initially thought I would. It piqued my interest because the autobiographical aspect (the author was the victim of a baseless police raid) and I'm always interested in #ownvoices novels, especially from WPOC. However, I've had a lot of hit-and-miss reading experiences with literary fiction and I was wary that the experimental writing style would be off-putting.
However, I'm happy to say that the writing style is really what made this a winner for me. I've discovered from reading other reviews that Laskar is also a published poet and it's evident in her prose. I listened to this on audio and the narrator did an amazing job of reading Laskar's stylized prose, giving it a beautiful cadence and rhythm.
There's not much of a plot--the story is focused on shining a light on the second generation immigration experience and how this affects the main character. There's a focus on motherhood (probably evident, given that the MC's only referred to as The Mother) and I liked how Laskar compares/contrasts The Mother's experience growing up with her children's (spoiler: there's not much of a difference at all). The blatant racism The Mother experiences is in equal parts enraging, baffling, and almost unbelievable (but you know it's not and you know it happens). While there's not much plot, there is a lot of meat to the story. It's short, but affecting.
This is one of the standout books I've read this year. I hope Laskar continues to publish fiction titles and I look forward to see what she comes out with next.
charlottejones952's review
4.0
I heard Mercedes from MercysBookishMusings talk about this book in her favourites of 2020 and was intrigued immediately.
Told in vignettes, this novel looks back at our unnamed protagonists life as she lies bleeding in her driveway having been shot by police. Laskar uses such short chapters but manages to pack in so much emotion and meaning. The protagonist describes her experiences as a Bengali-American woman raising children in the US around the time of the 9/11 attacks. Her experiences range from very open blatant racism to the more subtle incidents that stack up over time.
I felt a sense of foreboding throughout as you know from the first page that the woman has been shot by police but you remain unsure of the excuse given. This wasn’t resolved by the end of the novel and this is the only aspect stopping me giving it 5 stars. Ambiguity is often something I enjoy but there was no resolution at all in this book.
Overall the vignette style and the care that Laskar took in crafting this woman and her family was astonishing. I really enjoyed the reading experience and will definitely pick up anything else that Devi S. Laskar writes.
4 out of 5 stars!
Told in vignettes, this novel looks back at our unnamed protagonists life as she lies bleeding in her driveway having been shot by police. Laskar uses such short chapters but manages to pack in so much emotion and meaning. The protagonist describes her experiences as a Bengali-American woman raising children in the US around the time of the 9/11 attacks. Her experiences range from very open blatant racism to the more subtle incidents that stack up over time.
I felt a sense of foreboding throughout as you know from the first page that the woman has been shot by police but you remain unsure of the excuse given. This wasn’t resolved by the end of the novel and this is the only aspect stopping me giving it 5 stars. Ambiguity is often something I enjoy but there was no resolution at all in this book.
Overall the vignette style and the care that Laskar took in crafting this woman and her family was astonishing. I really enjoyed the reading experience and will definitely pick up anything else that Devi S. Laskar writes.
4 out of 5 stars!