A review by shortstackz
Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.5

The plot carries the book. I found it to be a little clunky particularly in Martin's self assessment of different ongoings at the plantation. 

Usually when something falls below a 3* I DNF it, the premise and setting are interesting enough where I wanted to keep reading despite the flat characters. Honestly if there were more consistent POVs from Anna (or they had been longer) I probably would have rage quit, but women are there for the Martin's personal growth! Silly me.

It suffered from having very 1 dimensional characters. Almost camp like in how each one is a characature. This might have been more effective if we got little vignets into either Dr. kasim or Oscar's POV more frequently. There was only a handful of chapters into other people's heads, otherwise we are discovering it through Martin's perspective. 

In the mine it would have been really interesting to have Oscar's camera in the sky POV, and hear what the Dr is thinking behind the scenes. There are definitely a lot of places where it feels like the author was trying to be subtle and then have a dramatic reveal, at no point was I shocked by that reveal. He is not a subtle author and (based on his female characters) has never authentically interacted with women. They are almost all set dressing, there is no conversation which passes the bechdel test. Some of the wives are literally described as "perfect and beautiful" while only existing to their husbands for sex and then vanishing and their independent hobbies is unimportant. Damon flipping sides felt more like it was there for plot convenience and a way to keep Martin alive than actually realizing that he was not doing something wrong. It happened so suddenly and he went from trying to save his own skin to oh let me die trying to save people despite knowing all the precautions of forty acres and emergency plans.