kmthoennes 's review for:

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

2.0

---

This was an incredibly hard read for me. It was intellectually written, but I almost gave up after reading the first chapter because it was just so hard to get through. The story spanned generations and covered very heavy topics like slavery, incest, rape/sexual abuse, drug use and racism. I trudged through it and struggled each time to read a little bit. As a privileged white woman, it was extremely hard to relate to the characters. This book was not written for me to relate, though. It was an important look at generational trauma and hardship for marginalized communities. I appreciated how the book focused a little bit on Native Americans and how they became mixed into culture with whites and blacks. I thought there would be more of an ah-ha moment at the end of the book after Ailey dives deep into her family history, but that ah-ha moment did not really come.