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A review by bobbieshiann
Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
emotional
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
“In our families we can pass hurt, same as we can pass new life. Baby, I don’t want no more hurt passed to you”.
A story within a story within a story at a time when Jim Crow seemed centered in the South, but in Maine during the 1950s, Salt Point held no discreteness as racism could not pass up two quiet Black families that aimed to educate and protect their children from the world. During the beginning of the civil rights movement, narrated by a 13-year-old, Cinthy Kindred lives in a space where she is connected to the earth and her family's past, and she must navigate through her feelings as what she once knew is no longer what will be. Within Cinthy's journey throughout the storyline, different characters share their perspectives, so as readers, we understand how they all came to be.
The summer before school is to start up again in 1957, Cinthy introduces us to her sister Ezra and Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, who happens to be white. In a moment of reveling between all three girls, Ezra understands that her friendship with Ruby is limited because, even though Ruby is poor, she will always be more privileged, and eventually she will succumb to what can be termed her "true nature". "Who is Ruby to us? When she starts her easy talk about the struggle and the Man, when she explains salvation and the uplift of our people to us, we withdraw, fastening our lips together until that kind of talk passes over and Ruby remembers, finally, that she is white". Ezra always counters Ruby with the fact that she is poor and gets beat black and blue by her alcoholic father, who does not care where Ruby’s next meal comes from.
Ruby’s point of view is important throughout the story as we watch a young white girl's dream to fly airplanes is shattered by false love, abuse, and the need to appeal to something more to be seen, and with doing so, her family sells her off. The irony is so loud as you are now a simple price tag and have some actual connection to Black people. "Her parents it seemed, it seemed—her mother really—had settled on a price, a finite value, for their only living child". Ruby’s parents, a mother who cannot get past her pageant days leading nowhere and a father whose demons leave him drunk and abusive, have Ruby striving for her own way out.
With the demons lying dormant in Ruby’s father, the death of their teacher, and a racist sheriff intimidating them, Cinthy and her family’s lives start to unravel fast! Through the connections Cinthy’s family has with the Junkettts, the only other Black family in Salt Point, Maine, they face tragedy, heroism, abuse, and happy encounters that create a bond that seeps into each character individually. Through flashbacks of Cinthy’s family's past, we learn of how her ancestors struggled for freedom but also loved hard and wholeheartedly.
Promise is captivating, harsh, and a reality that cannot be ignored. There is no clear-cut happy ending because blood has been shed and death has happened, but we see Cinthy and Ezra grow, and even though they are separated in the end both physically and in how they see the world, their love for each other is everlasting.
A story within a story within a story at a time when Jim Crow seemed centered in the South, but in Maine during the 1950s, Salt Point held no discreteness as racism could not pass up two quiet Black families that aimed to educate and protect their children from the world. During the beginning of the civil rights movement, narrated by a 13-year-old, Cinthy Kindred lives in a space where she is connected to the earth and her family's past, and she must navigate through her feelings as what she once knew is no longer what will be. Within Cinthy's journey throughout the storyline, different characters share their perspectives, so as readers, we understand how they all came to be.
The summer before school is to start up again in 1957, Cinthy introduces us to her sister Ezra and Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, who happens to be white. In a moment of reveling between all three girls, Ezra understands that her friendship with Ruby is limited because, even though Ruby is poor, she will always be more privileged, and eventually she will succumb to what can be termed her "true nature". "Who is Ruby to us? When she starts her easy talk about the struggle and the Man, when she explains salvation and the uplift of our people to us, we withdraw, fastening our lips together until that kind of talk passes over and Ruby remembers, finally, that she is white". Ezra always counters Ruby with the fact that she is poor and gets beat black and blue by her alcoholic father, who does not care where Ruby’s next meal comes from.
Ruby’s point of view is important throughout the story as we watch a young white girl's dream to fly airplanes is shattered by false love, abuse, and the need to appeal to something more to be seen, and with doing so, her family sells her off. The irony is so loud as you are now a simple price tag and have some actual connection to Black people. "Her parents it seemed, it seemed—her mother really—had settled on a price, a finite value, for their only living child". Ruby’s parents, a mother who cannot get past her pageant days leading nowhere and a father whose demons leave him drunk and abusive, have Ruby striving for her own way out.
With the demons lying dormant in Ruby’s father, the death of their teacher, and a racist sheriff intimidating them, Cinthy and her family’s lives start to unravel fast! Through the connections Cinthy’s family has with the Junkettts, the only other Black family in Salt Point, Maine, they face tragedy, heroism, abuse, and happy encounters that create a bond that seeps into each character individually. Through flashbacks of Cinthy’s family's past, we learn of how her ancestors struggled for freedom but also loved hard and wholeheartedly.
Promise is captivating, harsh, and a reality that cannot be ignored. There is no clear-cut happy ending because blood has been shed and death has happened, but we see Cinthy and Ezra grow, and even though they are separated in the end both physically and in how they see the world, their love for each other is everlasting.