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A review by thatsoneforthebooks
Windward Family: An atlas of love, loss and belonging by Alexis Keir
3.0
✨ Review ✨ Windward Family: An atlas of love, loss and belonging by Alexis Keir
First - I think this was a powerful memoir of the impact of diaspora over generations -- in family, love, pain, racial trauma, and so much more. I learned a lot and was fascinated by the stories Keir told here.
With that said, I think this was a super bold memoir that took some big risks in style and organization. I didn't dislike these choices but it made it much much harder to figure out in an audio format:
-it mixes nonfiction memoir with fictional anecdotes about real (I think?) people. It wasn't clear to me until the end that these were fictional and it was hard to keep track of all of these people and storylines that might have appeared only early in the book and at the end. I'm still so confused about all of this.
-it is very nonlinear, jumping in time and place. this might work better in print format where you can refer back but made it hard to sort out while listening.
-as a very place-based story and written in places I'm not very familiar with (Saint Vincent, New Zealand, and even rural UK), it was really challenging to follow where he was at in audio without a map (again, especially with the non-linear narrative.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3.25 stars)
Genre: memoir
Location: UK, New Zealand, Saint Vincent.
Pub Date: out now
Read this if you like:
⭕️ memoir about places that might be unfamiliar
⭕️ weaving together generational stories
⭕️ non-linear memoir
⭕️ BEAUTIFUL covers
Thanks to Thread and #netgalley for an advanced audio copy of this book!
First - I think this was a powerful memoir of the impact of diaspora over generations -- in family, love, pain, racial trauma, and so much more. I learned a lot and was fascinated by the stories Keir told here.
With that said, I think this was a super bold memoir that took some big risks in style and organization. I didn't dislike these choices but it made it much much harder to figure out in an audio format:
-it mixes nonfiction memoir with fictional anecdotes about real (I think?) people. It wasn't clear to me until the end that these were fictional and it was hard to keep track of all of these people and storylines that might have appeared only early in the book and at the end. I'm still so confused about all of this.
-it is very nonlinear, jumping in time and place. this might work better in print format where you can refer back but made it hard to sort out while listening.
-as a very place-based story and written in places I'm not very familiar with (Saint Vincent, New Zealand, and even rural UK), it was really challenging to follow where he was at in audio without a map (again, especially with the non-linear narrative.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3.25 stars)
Genre: memoir
Location: UK, New Zealand, Saint Vincent.
Pub Date: out now
Read this if you like:
⭕️ memoir about places that might be unfamiliar
⭕️ weaving together generational stories
⭕️ non-linear memoir
⭕️ BEAUTIFUL covers
Thanks to Thread and #netgalley for an advanced audio copy of this book!