Tag: book-reviews

Black Authors, Fiction, Historical, literary fiction, race

Book Review: James by Percival Everett

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“Belief has nothing to do with truth.”

When enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to sold to a man in New Orleans and separated from his family forever, he decides to hide in nearby Jackson Island until he can decide what to do. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father on that same day. This leads to a collision that leads to Jim being wanted for murder and being a runaway. This also leads to a dangerous journey via a raft, down the Mississippi River towards the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

“At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.”

I avoided this book for the longest time because I believed it would be too depressing for my state of mind at the time. I went to Barnes and Noble with a friend who bought me a copy of this book and seeing how slim it was, I decided to just give it a go and then couldn’t put it down. Everyone says this is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, which is a book I’ve never read, so you don’t have to be worried about not getting it if you haven’t read it. I decided to ignore all talks of a retelling and just read the book as its own thing. Even though this book is about slavery and its many horrors, Everett finds a way to make it a great adventure novel that always tried to put the humanity of its characters at the forefront of the novel.

“I did not look away. I wanted to feel the anger. I was befriending my anger, learning not only how to feel it, but perhaps how to use it.”

I don’t understand why the Goodreads blurb of this book calls it “ferociously funny”, there’s nothing funny about this book. I can’t even think of one scene that made me laugh out loud. This book is serious and thought provoking and no, this is not euphemism for boring. It really gives you a lot to think about, especially the power of language, how we use it and how it’s used to empower or colonize a group of people. This is not an easy book to read because lots of terrible things abound and most of these terrible things happen to people because of the color of their skin but Everett’s writing makes it a fast read.

I found this book to be suspenseful and heart wrenching and I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.

Have you heard about this book? Have you read it? Let me know in the comments what you think about it!

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction

Book Review: What Happened To Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez

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“We were not that kind of family, the type who spoke politely to each other about where and how we were in pain.”

In 1996, Ruthy Ramirez never makes it home from school. Twelve years later, her two sisters, Nina and Jessica are watching a reality TV show, “Catfight” which can basically be described like the real life show, “Bad Girls Club”. They see a girl called Ruby and are convinced that it is their sister. Ruby has red hair like Ruthy, a birth mark below her eyes like Ruthy and she is also from Staten Island. Same place they are from.

They hatch up a plan to stake out the Catfight house and confirm that Ruby is indeed Ruthy. Their mother, Dolores finds out about it and includes herself and her friend in the quest and the story goes back in time and gives us the POV of how Ruthy’s dissapearance affected each of them in different ways.

“Besides, you can only sympathize so long for somebody else’s loss before you run out of encouraging things to say.”

When I finished this book, one of my descriptions was that it was an easy read and I immediately felt like I had to take this back because though I found it to be a quick and easy read, it does touch on sexual assault and loss and that won’t be an easy read for everyone. Ramirez did a good job of making the characters real. You really felt like this Puerto Rican family were your family friends. Immigrant families would recognize some elements like family expectations, duties, religious mothers etc.

“Sometimes it feels like the three of us are still stuck in that car. Shouting out Ruthy’s name into the unanswering dark.”

While we get the POV from the sisters and mom, it felt like the main voice was Nina’s and she was a competent narrator. Part of what Jimenez does is take us into their mindset then and now. So we get to feel Nina’s unhappiness at her life at the moment and Jess’s home life with a baby. That being said, I felt like I could feel the hole that Ruthy left. Speaking of Ruthy, I liked that she was included in the POVs and we get to know her life before she disappeared. We learn Ruthy wasn’t an angel and had her own fiery personality.

And it seemed to me then, and still does now, that I could have become a completely different girl, a completely different woman, if Ruthy had never gone.”

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about the amount of curse words being used and I am so confused as to why this is even a thing. It’s 2024 and I assume it is adults reading this book, why is it a big deal? Anyways, I do recommend this book because I think the real story is more about following the story of a family who is still dealing with losing a family member many years later and are faced with a glimmer of hope. Another reason I liked this was that we actually get closure for Ruthy’s story and it is not one of those books where there is a vague ending where the interpretation is left to the reader.

Taynement