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4.47 AVERAGE
4.47 AVERAGE
This is a fictional retelling of a real historical period where slaves who fought on the British side during the American Revolution were offered sanctuary in Nova Scotia and then later shipped to Freetown in Sierra Leone.
The book follows the story of one African girl, Aminata, who is captured, sold into slavery, runs away, and becomes one of the blacks who works for the British. She writes the names of the black folks who have qualified for the British offer in "The Book of Negroes." But once they get to Nova Scotia, they find life is hard, the Brits don't follow through on giving them the land they were promised, and race riots decimate the black community. Aminata takes up the offer to be shipped to Sierra Leone, where she hopes to find her way back to the village where she was born.
I found the book to be just a little didactic in areas - it was obvious that Hill is trying to teach about lesser-known history of black folks in Canada. However, Aminata is such a likeable and relatable character that it doesn't matter. I liked this and am curious now about the miniseries based on the book.
The book follows the story of one African girl, Aminata, who is captured, sold into slavery, runs away, and becomes one of the blacks who works for the British. She writes the names of the black folks who have qualified for the British offer in "The Book of Negroes." But once they get to Nova Scotia, they find life is hard, the Brits don't follow through on giving them the land they were promised, and race riots decimate the black community. Aminata takes up the offer to be shipped to Sierra Leone, where she hopes to find her way back to the village where she was born.
I found the book to be just a little didactic in areas - it was obvious that Hill is trying to teach about lesser-known history of black folks in Canada. However, Aminata is such a likeable and relatable character that it doesn't matter. I liked this and am curious now about the miniseries based on the book.
Bringing the pages alive and making you understand the depth and breadth of the heartache that our main character endures, Lawrence Hill has a fan in me. Lawrence did not cover my eyes, but put it all out for me to feel and digest. What Aminata endured, what she saw, what became of her, and how all these events would make me feel upon reading the final page.
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-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
Rassismus, Missbrauch, Sklaverei – das sind alles keine Themen, die man mal eben gemütlich weglesen möchte. Aminatas Geschichte wird lebendig erzählt: mal wunderbar detailverliebt, mal erschreckend grausam, oft sogar witzig – und auch fast immer glaubhaft. Da sie eine ganze Lebensspanne umfasst, kommt sie dabei nicht um eine gewisse Episodenhaftigkeit herum. Vielleicht ist aber der einzig wirkliche Kritikpunkt der, dass sie es mir zu leicht gemacht hat. Dennoch: "Ich habe einen Namen" ist ein gutes Buch und ich habe es gerne gelesen.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Thought provoking book. Author does a good job at capturing the main character's voice during each age, from young girl to old woman.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Meticulously researched and deeply engrossing. It tells a hard story without papering over the horrors of the slave trade while also never wallowing in the misery.
2018 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge-A book by an author of a different ethnicity.
This book was really good. My only complaint was I had trouble keeping up with the timeline, but that's to be expected about a book that covers the entire life of a character. Slavery was wrong and it really boggles my mind how most people back then didn't realize it.
This book was really good. My only complaint was I had trouble keeping up with the timeline, but that's to be expected about a book that covers the entire life of a character. Slavery was wrong and it really boggles my mind how most people back then didn't realize it.
As a walking tour of a particular era in the Atlantic slave trade this is a very good book. The degree of awfulness on the part of participants in the slave industry is unfathomable, and the degree of incomprehension, hypocrisy, and wilful ignorance on the part of "civilized" beneficiaries of the slave industry is uncomfortably close to home in a world where Chinese labour toiling under conditions that are not at times very far from slavery dominates the world's productive capacity.
The book is very descriptive. This was probably a wise choice on the part of the author: really inhabiting the lived sensations of the narrator would have made almost impossible reading, but I still wish some of the scenes were more visceral in their impact. I felt like I was seeing into the past, but not inhabiting it in the way some historical fiction manages to achieve (read the opening chapter of Patricia Finney's "The Firedrake's Eye" and you'll know how it feels to come awake lying in an Elizabethan gutter, for example.)
Events are at times too clearly a result of the need to move the characters across the landscape and through time in a particular way, which makes them predictable, which also reduces the emotional impact of their eventual resolution.
But still: a solid, well-researched, and readable historical novel that covers the trans-Atlantic slave industry extremely well.
The book is very descriptive. This was probably a wise choice on the part of the author: really inhabiting the lived sensations of the narrator would have made almost impossible reading, but I still wish some of the scenes were more visceral in their impact. I felt like I was seeing into the past, but not inhabiting it in the way some historical fiction manages to achieve (read the opening chapter of Patricia Finney's "The Firedrake's Eye" and you'll know how it feels to come awake lying in an Elizabethan gutter, for example.)
Events are at times too clearly a result of the need to move the characters across the landscape and through time in a particular way, which makes them predictable, which also reduces the emotional impact of their eventual resolution.
But still: a solid, well-researched, and readable historical novel that covers the trans-Atlantic slave industry extremely well.