tamnado 's review for:

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

2.0

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Although the basis of the book, a missing violin owned by a talented black man and two families fighting for ownership of it, is interesting, I could not get past the language used in this book. It has a lot of fat-phobic talk and in general, if someone is described as “fat,” “pudgy,” “gut hung over,” or description of “scraped face,” and “acne marked,” then you know that the person is going to be an unlikeable character. Meanwhile, women’s bodies are described creepily with a focus on their “athletic form.” The author also uses some anti-deaf descriptions and there is a joke made around someone’s non-Americanized name. Overall, the characters are not very creative or dimensional. I had trouble ignoring the discriminatory writing in order finish the book and take in the important parts about discrimination against black people.

The book is also very repetitive. Chapters 24 and 25 are almost entirely repetitions of earlier chapters.

Ray’s grandmother teaches him to be a kind person no matter what, no matter who is treating you poorly. Ray encounters many racist people he chooses to be kind to. Yet, the end of the book he is hateful (for good reason), but it seems like the author missed a theme in his own book.