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A review by charlottejones952
The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar
4.0
I heard Mercedes from MercysBookishMusings talk about this book in her favourites of 2020 and was intrigued immediately.
Told in vignettes, this novel looks back at our unnamed protagonists life as she lies bleeding in her driveway having been shot by police. Laskar uses such short chapters but manages to pack in so much emotion and meaning. The protagonist describes her experiences as a Bengali-American woman raising children in the US around the time of the 9/11 attacks. Her experiences range from very open blatant racism to the more subtle incidents that stack up over time.
I felt a sense of foreboding throughout as you know from the first page that the woman has been shot by police but you remain unsure of the excuse given. This wasn’t resolved by the end of the novel and this is the only aspect stopping me giving it 5 stars. Ambiguity is often something I enjoy but there was no resolution at all in this book.
Overall the vignette style and the care that Laskar took in crafting this woman and her family was astonishing. I really enjoyed the reading experience and will definitely pick up anything else that Devi S. Laskar writes.
4 out of 5 stars!
Told in vignettes, this novel looks back at our unnamed protagonists life as she lies bleeding in her driveway having been shot by police. Laskar uses such short chapters but manages to pack in so much emotion and meaning. The protagonist describes her experiences as a Bengali-American woman raising children in the US around the time of the 9/11 attacks. Her experiences range from very open blatant racism to the more subtle incidents that stack up over time.
I felt a sense of foreboding throughout as you know from the first page that the woman has been shot by police but you remain unsure of the excuse given. This wasn’t resolved by the end of the novel and this is the only aspect stopping me giving it 5 stars. Ambiguity is often something I enjoy but there was no resolution at all in this book.
Overall the vignette style and the care that Laskar took in crafting this woman and her family was astonishing. I really enjoyed the reading experience and will definitely pick up anything else that Devi S. Laskar writes.
4 out of 5 stars!