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A review by santreads
The Deep by Rivers Solomon
5.0
I’m hesitant to read books whose synopsis sound absolutely amazing. Counterintuitive, I know. But I’m scared that the book won’t live up to its hype. So when it came to this book, I wanted to love it so bad, I psyched myself to bring my expectations down and I think maybe it worked??
The book’s premise is brilliant. The mermaid kind of creatures that live in the deep seas are actually children of the pregnant African women who are thrown off slave ships. They somehow are nurtured by the ocean and its creatures and are now ‘Wajinru’. These people are given the boon of not having a very long memory but short ones so that they do not remember the trauma and of their past. There is one person however, who holds the burden of holding all these memories - 600 years of them - and that is the historian. The historian of today is Yetu and she is the main protagonist of this story. She was anyway quite the sensitive person and now that she has these memories and has no one to share it with, it gets harder and harder. The book progresses to make us understand how she deals with it and there’s a lot of other things that happen but it is a novella so I will be spoiling things if I tell you. :)
I really loved the conversation that the book had in terms of what our collective trauma means to us - be it what we are going through right now or what we’ve gone through in the past. Is it best to be forgotten or remembered and held close to our hearts.
I thought this book was super relevant to what’s going on with the Black Lives Matters movement and I think it’s a reminder to remember our humanity, to remember the actions of others and what this could mean for so many people even today.
I fully recommend this book. It’s short, wonderfully written. It seamlessly goes between the past and present. And also, the concept behind this book is stunning. It was originally an afrofuturistic song that was then made into a contemporary rap song which was then made into this novella. Stunning!
The book’s premise is brilliant. The mermaid kind of creatures that live in the deep seas are actually children of the pregnant African women who are thrown off slave ships. They somehow are nurtured by the ocean and its creatures and are now ‘Wajinru’. These people are given the boon of not having a very long memory but short ones so that they do not remember the trauma and of their past. There is one person however, who holds the burden of holding all these memories - 600 years of them - and that is the historian. The historian of today is Yetu and she is the main protagonist of this story. She was anyway quite the sensitive person and now that she has these memories and has no one to share it with, it gets harder and harder. The book progresses to make us understand how she deals with it and there’s a lot of other things that happen but it is a novella so I will be spoiling things if I tell you. :)
I really loved the conversation that the book had in terms of what our collective trauma means to us - be it what we are going through right now or what we’ve gone through in the past. Is it best to be forgotten or remembered and held close to our hearts.
I thought this book was super relevant to what’s going on with the Black Lives Matters movement and I think it’s a reminder to remember our humanity, to remember the actions of others and what this could mean for so many people even today.
I fully recommend this book. It’s short, wonderfully written. It seamlessly goes between the past and present. And also, the concept behind this book is stunning. It was originally an afrofuturistic song that was then made into a contemporary rap song which was then made into this novella. Stunning!