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A review by dliterate
Conjure Women by Afia Atakora
3.0
While competently written, I can't say this book was for me.
It's tough to discuss some of the main issues I have with this book, since I'd be getting into spoilers if I were to do so. Sufficed to say, while the story mostly follows Rue, the heir to her mothers' position as a conjure woman in the period just before and after the end of slavery in the USA, I don't think you'd have had to change anything but the perspective the story was told from to easily write her as the villain of the story.
As it stands, the story seemed to meander its way from the beginning to its end without any real sense of purpose. I didn't feel like I had a better understanding of this time period, or the African Americans who experienced it, by the time I reached the end of the book. In fact, while I wouldn't say that the cruelty of white slavers was entirely absent from the book, their presence felt weirdly muted. Which feels like a weird choice given the time and location of the story. And that's not to say that I needed the book to have more violence; but, rather, that this particular choice set up a spectre of white violence, while focusing on smaller acts of intracommunity violence. There was even one storyline that was essentially based on the abuse of a mentally ill white woman. These could have been interesting choices if I felt like I understood better why they had been made, but I can't say I do.
It's tough to discuss some of the main issues I have with this book, since I'd be getting into spoilers if I were to do so. Sufficed to say, while the story mostly follows Rue, the heir to her mothers' position as a conjure woman in the period just before and after the end of slavery in the USA, I don't think you'd have had to change anything but the perspective the story was told from to easily write her as the villain of the story.
As it stands, the story seemed to meander its way from the beginning to its end without any real sense of purpose. I didn't feel like I had a better understanding of this time period, or the African Americans who experienced it, by the time I reached the end of the book. In fact, while I wouldn't say that the cruelty of white slavers was entirely absent from the book, their presence felt weirdly muted. Which feels like a weird choice given the time and location of the story. And that's not to say that I needed the book to have more violence; but, rather, that this particular choice set up a spectre of white violence, while focusing on smaller acts of intracommunity violence. There was even one storyline that was essentially based on the abuse of a mentally ill white woman. These could have been interesting choices if I felt like I understood better why they had been made, but I can't say I do.