Scan barcode
A review by bookedupandbusy
River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
3.0
3.75/5
Set in Barbados, 1834, slavery has just been abolished and Rachel who was a runaway slave is trying to find her 5 children whom she lost whilst working on the plantation.
This is a story about a time in history that is not often told. How did slaves rebuild their lives once slavery was abolished? This is a grey area for me and this is why the book piqued my interest. ‘’This is NOT a story about slavery, but what comes after it’’.
Rachel’s search for her children is harrowing. The emotions of a mother searching for her children on every single page and not knowing whether they were dead or alive was agonising. The pace of the story is very very slow but this is reflective of Rachel’s journey in finding her children.
I found the first half of the book to be heavily narrative based and I would have liked a lot more dialogue to connect better with certain characters, but this is just a preference and not a hindrance to the story.
As always with historical fiction, I learnt a lot about how black people established themselves at the end of slavery in regards to housing, business/work and status, which was eye-opening!
This is a very important read
Set in Barbados, 1834, slavery has just been abolished and Rachel who was a runaway slave is trying to find her 5 children whom she lost whilst working on the plantation.
This is a story about a time in history that is not often told. How did slaves rebuild their lives once slavery was abolished? This is a grey area for me and this is why the book piqued my interest. ‘’This is NOT a story about slavery, but what comes after it’’.
Rachel’s search for her children is harrowing. The emotions of a mother searching for her children on every single page and not knowing whether they were dead or alive was agonising. The pace of the story is very very slow but this is reflective of Rachel’s journey in finding her children.
I found the first half of the book to be heavily narrative based and I would have liked a lot more dialogue to connect better with certain characters, but this is just a preference and not a hindrance to the story.
As always with historical fiction, I learnt a lot about how black people established themselves at the end of slavery in regards to housing, business/work and status, which was eye-opening!
This is a very important read