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cmarcatili 's review for:
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
In this book, Jojo, his sister Kayla and his mother Leonie travel to pick up Michael from prison. Leonie distracts herself from grief with her obsessive love for Michael and her addiction to drugs. Jojo, still young himself, has to grow old quickly to protect his baby sister from his mother's careless parenting. And underlying it all, the presence of those who have died but not yet passed over.
I was saddened that I didn't love this book. The praise for it is pretty effusive, with a lot of people highlighting the language and writing style as being particularly beautiful. I find a lot of these reviews overstate the quality of language by a long stretch. The writing wasn't especially beautiful. But it was really successful at evoking were unpleasant sensations. Stickiness, clamminess, the dry dirt, the unbearable humidity. Vomit, hunger and pain. I felt trapped in the car along with Jojo, suffocating in the heat, frustrated by every decision made.
Unfortunately I found the book too dull. It's a slow pace, with not that much happening through a lot of it. The journey lacks anything really engaging, and moments that might have heightened the tension are washed over quickly (a prison scene, a scene pulled over by the cops, a potential poisoning, all over before they're begun). It's difficult to ever sympathise with Leonie (I had a brief moment toward the end but that was really it). Even the ghosts don't bring much to the novel.
About 10 pages from the end was a moment that really stuck out for me, as Jojo embraces his gift and for a moment sees the history of his home. But otherwise I thought the exploration of themes could have been better handled. Overall a bit of a disappointment for me.
I was saddened that I didn't love this book. The praise for it is pretty effusive, with a lot of people highlighting the language and writing style as being particularly beautiful. I find a lot of these reviews overstate the quality of language by a long stretch. The writing wasn't especially beautiful. But it was really successful at evoking were unpleasant sensations. Stickiness, clamminess, the dry dirt, the unbearable humidity. Vomit, hunger and pain. I felt trapped in the car along with Jojo, suffocating in the heat, frustrated by every decision made.
Unfortunately I found the book too dull. It's a slow pace, with not that much happening through a lot of it. The journey lacks anything really engaging, and moments that might have heightened the tension are washed over quickly (a prison scene, a scene pulled over by the cops, a potential poisoning, all over before they're begun). It's difficult to ever sympathise with Leonie (I had a brief moment toward the end but that was really it). Even the ghosts don't bring much to the novel.
About 10 pages from the end was a moment that really stuck out for me, as Jojo embraces his gift and for a moment sees the history of his home. But otherwise I thought the exploration of themes could have been better handled. Overall a bit of a disappointment for me.