shimauchiha 's review for:

Becoming Leidah by Michelle Grierson
5.0

It took me two days to finish this book, but I would have read it in a sitting if I had more than early mornings and late late nights scraps of time.

It's funny because it's not the kind of story you'd associate with being un-put-downable (Not a real word!). It is a quiet novel in some ways. The story of a fisherman, his beautiful wife and their daughter, born with blue limbs and webbing between her fingers and toes.
Except there is also a lost god, a watchful ghost, a spiteful witch and a terrible act of violence in the family's past that reverberates through time.


This is the story of how wild things might be contained for a while, but they will never be truly tamed.
Truth might be hidden, but never lost.
Someone might steal from you your very soul and being for a while, but never forever.


Don't read this book when you want:
- 100% clarity, and a plot where you can just sit back and relax.
- A book that feels traditional, familiar and easy.
- A book to make you laugh, or amuse you.
- A book that doesn't contain any triggers.
Spoiler Sexual assault, gaslighting.

- A love story, or uncomplicated relationships.

Read this book when you want:
- A book that doesn't hold your hand and explain things, but lets you be a quiet observer, putting puzzle pieces together.
- A book that weaves a quiet mythical retelling and a domestic thriller together, for real.
- A book that feels like a breath of fresh air.
- Complex characters.
- To remember that no matter what, you too, can eventually be free.