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meganmargoking 's review for:
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
by Alex Haley
So I finally read 'Roots', an American epic. 'Roots' and its characters are ingrained in the minds of all Americans mostly because of the miniseries. The moments that stick out to people probably are Kunta Kinte being whipped until he admits that he new name is Toby, Kunta Kinte getting his foot cut off, Kizzy being sold off, and one moment that always stood out for me was when Kizzy went to her father's grave and crossed out 'Toby' and wrote 'Kinta Kunte'. Well, guess what folks? A lot of stuff that happened in the miniseries never happened in the book or happened at a different point in the character's lives.
After that rant, I really didn't like the book. I had a lot of problems with it. And mind you, I didn't learn about Haley's plagiarism allegations until about midway through the book. And that frankly does not bother me in my review. I wish the book had been presented as historical fiction rather than fact. Haley is making most of the conversations and motivations of these characters up but his audience takes it as pure fact. And all the characters, by the way, are completely 2 dimensional. It's utterly horrible. There's no way you can relate to any of these characters. They act and think the same which is utterly ridiculous. During Kunta Kinte's time, the slaves literally tell you the history of the American Revolution. But nothing about what they went through, their emotions, their daily life during this period, NOTHING. Halet simply makes his characters tell you the history, and this happens again during Chicken George's time with the Civil War. When Kizzy was being raped, I didn't care. There's no emotional attachment to the characters. Haley also clearly was not comfortable writing in the female point of view. He only wrote in Kizzy's point of view for like 20 minutes (I read the audio book) and once Chicken George is able to talk (literally he's like a toddler) he switches to his point of view. How absurd is that?
And it kind of makes me mad that this is the book that makes people want to research their family history. Don't people realize that the only reason Haley was able to do all that research was because he had connections? YES! I went there.
After that rant, I really didn't like the book. I had a lot of problems with it. And mind you, I didn't learn about Haley's plagiarism allegations until about midway through the book. And that frankly does not bother me in my review. I wish the book had been presented as historical fiction rather than fact. Haley is making most of the conversations and motivations of these characters up but his audience takes it as pure fact. And all the characters, by the way, are completely 2 dimensional. It's utterly horrible. There's no way you can relate to any of these characters. They act and think the same which is utterly ridiculous. During Kunta Kinte's time, the slaves literally tell you the history of the American Revolution. But nothing about what they went through, their emotions, their daily life during this period, NOTHING. Halet simply makes his characters tell you the history, and this happens again during Chicken George's time with the Civil War. When Kizzy was being raped, I didn't care. There's no emotional attachment to the characters. Haley also clearly was not comfortable writing in the female point of view. He only wrote in Kizzy's point of view for like 20 minutes (I read the audio book) and once Chicken George is able to talk (literally he's like a toddler) he switches to his point of view. How absurd is that?
And it kind of makes me mad that this is the book that makes people want to research their family history. Don't people realize that the only reason Haley was able to do all that research was because he had connections? YES! I went there.