All That She Carried

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it tells a compelling story about slavery, and if you haven't read about the horrors of slavery in the US it is a good place to start. (We don't need to teach “CRT”–just assign a couple of books like this and people will get the idea of how badly slaves were treated by whites.) On the other hand, if you have read about slavery, as most educated people have, this book adds only some texture to the story–the interesting detail of how enslaved women might value needlework in some kind of coping mechanism. But what I found lacking in the book is that its central narrative revolves around speculation. As much as the author tried to get concrete evidence, that evidence is mostly lacking and so much of the story is made up. It could have been done this way, for this reason, etc. It's all plausible, but not really history.