A review by ajudeholbert87
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

3.0

Certainly an interesting topic to write about, as you don’t come across novels about young, enslaved, black boys becoming marine artists often (if ever). However, the ending of this book left me with so many unanswered questions. Does “Wash” go back to Barbados with Titch? Does Ms. Goff go with them? What’s most upsetting is that Wash is essentially exploring the world as a pseudo free man, while searching for a man that abandoned him. Does that make him free? Not really. It makes him an abandoned slave, searching the world for his temporary master, to come to find that Titch had not been worried about him, not dreaming about him, and already replaced him. I wished that Wash would have found his personal independence and built a true life for himself, rather than spending years for a man that wasn’t concerned about him. I felt that the book went on and on in some areas but fell short and abruptly at the end when Wash finally finds Titch in Morocco.