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A review by dimitypee
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
3.0
I should add the disclaimer that I read this book over a month ago and don’t have it on hand to substantiate the claims I make so I’m writing about my general impressions as I remember them. I was ultimately disappointed by this novel. I was so intrigued and excited by the creative plot I read in the synopsis but found the execution to fall flat. There were some anachronisms that never fail to annoy me while reading historic fiction. I also found parts of it to leave me with the unsettling sense of “white person writing about how slavery wasn’t really that bad”. I’m certainly not against white people writing about slavery but some parts of how she handled it just made me uneasy. I guess I may also get this sense from my overall impression that her research was rather lacking.
In general, I am a bit uncomfortable with the treatment of indentured servitude as being on par with African slavery. It was certainly no picnic to be Irish in this time period and it is certain that many Irish laborers were mistreated and tricked. However, in my mind there is an unbridgeable gap between those who had the choice to sign up for service and those who were violently kidnapped from Africa and transported to the Americas. I have read (and been annoyed by) several books lately dealing with this theme so I may be coming down on Grissom harder than she deserves. To her credit, Grissom does show that Lavinia had a very different trajectory in life than the slaves she considered her family. I think that writing her heroine as a small girl in the beginning of the story was smart because it made her relationship with her adopted family seem a lot more believable.
Ultimately, this is another book on my list that I wish Good Reads allowed half stars for because this was a solid 2.5 star book. It was a fascinating story but had enough flaws that I probably wouldn’t recommend it.
In general, I am a bit uncomfortable with the treatment of indentured servitude as being on par with African slavery. It was certainly no picnic to be Irish in this time period and it is certain that many Irish laborers were mistreated and tricked. However, in my mind there is an unbridgeable gap between those who had the choice to sign up for service and those who were violently kidnapped from Africa and transported to the Americas. I have read (and been annoyed by) several books lately dealing with this theme so I may be coming down on Grissom harder than she deserves. To her credit, Grissom does show that Lavinia had a very different trajectory in life than the slaves she considered her family. I think that writing her heroine as a small girl in the beginning of the story was smart because it made her relationship with her adopted family seem a lot more believable.
Ultimately, this is another book on my list that I wish Good Reads allowed half stars for because this was a solid 2.5 star book. It was a fascinating story but had enough flaws that I probably wouldn’t recommend it.