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A review by ladymirtazapine
The Cost of Sugar by Cynthia McLeod
4.0
Content notes: enslavement, extreme violence, mention of death of mother in childbirth, murder, infidelity, loss of limbs, description of conflict, stillbirth, deaths of children and adults from yellow fever epidemic
This was an interesting way to learn about a piece of history I wasn't familiar with - I didn't know that there were specifically Jewish colonies, or much at all about the history of Suriname.
It was interesting that the main villain in the story was the beautiful young white woman. The author was more generous as to the motivations and general goodness of the other white characters than I would have expected.
In the version I read most of the dialogue is footnoted. The footnotes appear to translate the dialogue back into the language it would have been spoken in. This was an interesting choice that I didn't really understand, as I wasn't using the novel to try to learn Dutch or the native Suriname languages. I'm assuming that's what the footnotes do as I'm not familiar with any of the languages they were written in, so they were just a slightly irritating distraction.
This was an interesting way to learn about a piece of history I wasn't familiar with - I didn't know that there were specifically Jewish colonies, or much at all about the history of Suriname.
It was interesting that the main villain in the story was the beautiful young white woman. The author was more generous as to the motivations and general goodness of the other white characters than I would have expected.
In the version I read most of the dialogue is footnoted. The footnotes appear to translate the dialogue back into the language it would have been spoken in. This was an interesting choice that I didn't really understand, as I wasn't using the novel to try to learn Dutch or the native Suriname languages. I'm assuming that's what the footnotes do as I'm not familiar with any of the languages they were written in, so they were just a slightly irritating distraction.