Lori
I shouldn’t have tried this book after reading Beloved and hating it, this authors style is not for me. I chose to read this book as it filled in another reading challenge prompt. I hated this equally if not more then the Beloved. I found there is less confusing dream sequences but the same slipping in and out of time in while in conversations or stream of consciousness sections. There was also the bad narration by the author herself in the audiobook. What really makes this book bad is the sexual content and the weak blue eyes plot.
The sexual content is about rape and its is handled in the worst of ways. One of my favorite books is The Color Purple and it handles rape throughout the book in what I feel a powerful yet respectful way. It doesn’t hold back on the horror of rape, but it doesn’t over describe and even worse sexualize it the way this book does. This author fully describes what happens throughout the rapes and writes it in a style similar to a romance book. There are times when the author goes so far as to add lines that make it sound like the children were ok with what happened and at one point almost empathizes with the rapist.
The author does not explain why the main character is so focused on blue eyes specifically. A focus on light skin is more easily to understood then blue eyes as we see that problematic view even now. Much of the reasoning behind these characters doesn’t make sense. Like the father raping his child because he doesn’t know how to love her? There is so little of this story actually dedicated to the main characters body dysmorphia and obsession on white beauty standards.
I shouldn’t have tried this book after reading Beloved and hating it, this authors style is not for me. I chose to read this book as it filled in another reading challenge prompt. I hated this equally if not more then the Beloved. I found there is less confusing dream sequences but the same slipping in and out of time in while in conversations or stream of consciousness sections. There was also the bad narration by the author herself in the audiobook. What really makes this book bad is the sexual content and the weak blue eyes plot.
The sexual content is about rape and its is handled in the worst of ways. One of my favorite books is The Color Purple and it handles rape throughout the book in what I feel a powerful yet respectful way. It doesn’t hold back on the horror of rape, but it doesn’t over describe and even worse sexualize it the way this book does. This author fully describes what happens throughout the rapes and writes it in a style similar to a romance book. There are times when the author goes so far as to add lines that make it sound like the children were ok with what happened and at one point almost empathizes with the rapist.
The author does not explain why the main character is so focused on blue eyes specifically. A focus on light skin is more easily to understood then blue eyes as we see that problematic view even now. Much of the reasoning behind these characters doesn’t make sense. Like the father raping his child because he doesn’t know how to love her? There is so little of this story actually dedicated to the main characters body dysmorphia and obsession on white beauty standards.