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Dec 31, 2011

jo rated it:

when i finished the book, i realized that the hurricane's presence in it had been much stronger than i had realized at first. even though katrina occupies only two chapters, it seems as if the prose breathes hurricane weather in and out in every chapter -- through water, heat, stifling humidity, the stillness of the air and then the non-stillness of the air as the trees sway in a wind that gives no relief, hunger, dirt, restless sleep. you know it if you've been in a hurricane, but i think havin More...

23 comments like (13 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2012

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it:

Update: I did it. I finished it. I skimmed over some spots, but read it, I did. Right to the end. The ending that I am going to believe was a happy one. Yes.

__________

This book seethes with brutality - implied, overt - and I turn each page with my heart in my throat, steeling myself for what is to come.

Kids, dogs subject to abuse, trauma, neglect.

Can't do it. It's beautifully written, even poetic in places, but I can't do it.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2011

Babydoll rated it:

Ok. I have to admit it. I felt an abundance of awe while reading Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. The sort of awe-inspiring admiration an avid reader’s experience, while reading a novel whose lyrical prose is so breathtaking, that you know you’ve just discovered your new favorite author. Ward has received numerous notable attentions for this novel, including the National Book Award for fiction. After reading it, I can undoubtedly understand the reason the accolades were given.

The nov More...

8 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2012

Wanda rated it:

This novel takes place in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, MS. It covers the 10 days before Hurricane Katrina and two days afterwards. This is the story of 15-year-old pregnant Esch. Her mother is dead, her Dad a drunk. She has three brothers and, basically, they have raised themselves.

I wanted to like this book more, but found it very difficult to read. I was conflicted through most of the book. I had to keep reminding myself it was written from the perspective of children. T More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 14, 2012

Linda rated it:

Brutal and savage story told almost entirely in the present tense. I found it both repelling and compelling. In my opinion it had little to do with Katrina (the hurricane) and more to do about surviving in a savage land. Most of the descriptive writing is eloquent, but at times it could have used better editing. Now I'm looking for something that does not use the word detritus once.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Coleen rated it:

Salvage the Bones was probably the best book I read in 2011. From the opening sentence I felt a tremendous weight, the writing is so poignant, so full of emotion.

Salvage the Bones begins with the Batiste family preparing for hurricane Katrina while facing the day to day obstacles of their lives. In spite of all of the sadness this book also left me with a feeling of hope in the power of the human spirit and the awesome power of family.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Tony rated it:

SALVAGE THE BONES. (2011). Jesmyn Ward. ***.
This was the 2011 winner of the National Book Award. It’s about a dysfunctional family set in a coastal town in Mississippi, starting just before hurricane Katrina until just after it hits. It’s a story centered around Esch, a fifteen-year-old girl who is pregnant and living with her three brothers and her father. Mom is dead and dad is a drunkard. Her brother Skeetah is raising pit bulls, and is caring for a new litter that is slowly dyi More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Brian rated it:

Reading a distinct artistic voice remains one my great pleasures. Even if I know ahead of time that the writer's voice and acclaim precedes him/her the surprise of the journey through the novel stays with me for a long time. Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent grabbed me like that--so did Kerouac's On the Road--along with McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Rand's Atlas Shrugged; Robinson's Housekeeping; Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day; de Saint-Exupéry's The Littl More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2012

Katrina rated it:

There’s nothing pretty about poverty or the cruelty of dog fighting, however Jesmyn Ward writes about both in her latest novel, “Salvage the Bones,” with spectacular beauty.

Esch, the narrator, is fifteen and living in a small Mississippi town along the Gulf with her alcoholic father and her three brothers, one of whom loves his pit bull beyond all reason. Esch, enthralled by the myth of Medea and Jason, begins to see the story mirrored in her own life, in her dealings with Manny, the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Bob rated it:

I don’t remember why I bought this book. It probably wasn’t that it won the National Book Award for 2011; more likely that it’s about the Mississippi coast in the time prior to Hurricane Katrina. I have family living on that coastline, and have visited the area many times, being from the not-so-far-away Louisiana “hill country.” (Don’t laugh – there are some.)

I’m white, though, and while all Southerners or all classes and races interact (although they sometimes don’t act like it), More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Judy Ross rated it:

This National Book Award winner for 2011 is a first novel! It's beautifully written. It's about a dirt poor black family that lives in what they call the "Pit" in Bois Savage, Mississippi. Their land, a virtual junkyard, is surrounded by woods. The narrator, Esch, is the only girl in a motherless family with three brothers. She tells of their life in a matter of fact way without asking for sympathy. Yet, I was emotionally engaged from the start. In fact I had to put the book aside a fe More...

1 comment like

Dec 14, 2011

Lindaellen rated it:

This was a difficult book for me to read. It is bleak, so very bleak, and one of the story threads is dog-fighting, which meant I had to skip more than a few pages (although I did read enough to get the gist what was going on). That being said, I think the book probably presents a very accurate portrayal of life for this family in that part of Louisiana and, given the culture, the dog-fighting aspect was probably accurate and necessary, as well. The writing is beautiful in an unusual and unex More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Rachel rated it:

Fifteen year old Esch just found she’s pregnant. She keeps this secret to herself while watching her brother Skeetah take care of his prize dog-fighting pit bull China, who just had puppies. Her oldest brother Randall struggles to take care of the family while their alcoholic father tries to prepare for a coming hurricane. Their mother died giving birth to their youngest brother Junior and the family’s life in rural Mississippi has been extra hard ever since.

This book was beautiful and More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2011

Ciara rated it:

i had a really tough time getting into this book. maybe it's because i was reading it in between doing other things (i generally prefer to block out a big chunk of time so i can really get into a story--especially with fiction). maybe it's just because it wasn't really that engaging. it's the story of a family living in mississippi countryside, in the week & a half before hurricane katrina hits. the story is narrated by esch, age fifteen & the only girl among the four siblings. randall, one year More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2011

Mike rated it:

This is one of the those books that I can easily acknowledge as being very, very well written. The premise is great: a family deals with their traumatic issues of life while Hurricane Katrina moves in on the people of the Gulf. What makes the novel so wonderful is that these issues include a teen pregnancy, complete with unknown "daddy," an alcoholic father, and even a detailed depiction of dog fighting. The characters aren't heroes by any stretch of the imagination, but, when the hur More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2011

Jaime rated it:

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Only Jesmyn Ward, a native Mississippian, could have written a book like this. The Batiste family experiences the mighty wrath of a storm named Katrina, a storm like no other that ravages not only a household but also brutally alters the surrounding landscape. In Ward's novel, water serves two purposes: it cleanses and it destructs. Ward proves with her second novel Salvage the Bones that she deserves a place among Mississippi's finest literary great More...

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Sep 09, 2011

Nadia rated it:

Read this book - you will not be disappointed! The writing is excellent and the characters truly are unforgettable. Your heart will break reading about Esch and her family and the extreme poverty they live in; plus, you won't be able to put the book down once Hurricane Katrina makes her way to their home and starts wreaking all sorts of havoc. Consisting of twelve chapters, each one representing a day in the life of the Batiste family, Salvage the Bones, tells the gripping story of four sibli More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2011

Dodie rated it:

Set in the 12 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, readers meet the dysfunctional (and dirt poor) Batiste family living in the small hamlet of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Momma died when Jr. was born, and Esch and her older brothers, Skeetah and Randall, are just trying to get by, mostly in the absence of their beer-swilling father. Skeetah thinks his ticket out is his pit bull, China, who has just had puppies. Randall thinks a basketball scholarship is in the cards for him. And Esch? Her only More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Desiree rated it:

I bumped this up to two stars based on the last couple of chapters where the book finally started to hold my interest. I just could not get into this at all. Definitely underwhelming. I can't even quite pinpoint what it was; maybe the writing? It was quite a slugfest and the only reason I completed it was because I had committed to it for the LFPC group. Now let me run over there to read the discussion then 1. See why the majority liked it and 2. Say why I didn't like it.

20 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2011

Grace rated it:

Salvage the Bones is a Hurricane Katrina story that won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction. That's all I knew when I requested a copy from my local library and I figured I couldn't go wrong with reading this book. Sigh. I did.

I wanted to like it. It had all of the right ingredients for a powerful novel. Characters were conflicted with themselves, each other, and nature. There was room for characters to develop and change throughout the story. The backdrop was one of the worst More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2011

April the Cheshire Meow rated it:

This is a prose novel written by a poet. The language is beautiful and the pacing is perfect. It was difficult to put this one down at night, and sometimes I didn't. I wish it was longer. I hated to come to the last page and leave this family. I have read in some places that it is considered a Katrina novel; however, I think that would be an incorrect characterization of the book. It actually is about a poor family in Mississippi and how they live, and how they deal with the adversity and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2011

Mandy rated it:

For the full review go to WellReadWife.com

Salvage The Bones is told through the eyes of fourteen year old Esch. The story begins with China, a pitbull, giving birth to a litter of puppies. In what is one of the most vivid birthing scenes I have read since The Red Pony by John Steinbeck, Esch reminisces about the birth of her brother junior that resulted in her mother’s death while watching China struggle to deliver her puppies. The scene is both beautiful and tragic and sets the tone More...

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Dec 19, 2011

Michelle rated it:

What makes a person like a book? How much does understanding the setting play into liking a book? How much does understanding the time and place in which the book is set matter? How much does identifying with the situations the protagonist faces matter? How much does getting to interact with the author play into how much you enjoy a book?

I came across Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward a few months ago. I don't remember if it was before I saw it on the list of National Book Award More...

2 comments like

Dec 03, 2011

Karen rated it:

At the beginning of this book the narrator Esch mentions she has read Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying." It's a nod to what the reader is getting into -- the grief of a family, the heavy Spanish-moss draped, dirt-covered setting, the rich language. Except this family is African-American. I loved Esch's changing perspective on her brothers, and herself, and even her father, as the storm and other circumstances strip them of those things that are meaningful to them -- Skeetah's puppies born More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2012

Eric rated it:

I liked this book a lot.

The narrator is a teenage girl named Esch (hmmm...what's the significance of that name) in rural Louisiana in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. Her family includes her father (an alcoholic since the death of her mother), younger brother Junior, and older brothers Skeetah and Randall. Skeetah has a pit bull named China on whom he dotes. China has just given birth to a litter of pups.

Animal lovers may find this novel hard to take, since China is More...

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Feb 19, 2012

Randall rated it:

Poverty. Single-parent family. Teenage pregnancy. Alcoholism. Dog Fighting. Dismemberment. Hurricane Katrina.

As top-line topics go, "Salvage the Bones" touches on some pretty big bummers.

That being said, there is a constant breeze of humanity and family blowing through Jesmyn Ward's pages, strongest after the storm has passed and the waters have receded.

People much smarter about literature and the written word awarded this novel the 2011 National Book Awar More...

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Jan 04, 2012

Lisa rated it:

The description of this book drew me in and it didn't let me down. After reading it, I found an interview with Jesmyn Ward (www.theparisreview.org.) "I had to be more honest about the realities of the community I was writing about. After my brother died in the fall of 2000, four young black men from my community died in the next four years - from suicide, drug overdose, murder, and auto accidents. My family and I survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005; we left my grandmother's flooding h More...

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Nov 17, 2011

Darryl rated it:

Esch Batiste is a 14 year old girl who lives in a rural town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast along with her father Claude and her three brothers, Randall, Skeetah and Junior, who was named for his father after his mother died soon after giving birth to him. The kids are mainly left to fend for themselves, subsisting on Ramen noodles, bologna and the hidden chicken eggs they gather, as their father often drunk, hostile and emotionally distant from them. Each of them has a main focus, which serves a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 15, 2012

Cade rated it:

A marvelously written story about a girl approaching womanhood named Esch living in a poor, isolated Gulf Coast community called Bois Sauvage. The story revolves around Esch and her all male family consisting of her father and her three brothers--her mother having died earlier--as well as some extended "family" in the form of family friends, all of whom are male too. So Esch is isolated not just by location and poverty, but also by gender. The closest thing to a female figure in Esch's More...

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Dec 12, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

Ward depicts 12 days in the lives of the Batiste family who live in a decaying home surrounded by discarded appliances and rusting vehicles in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The story is told through the eyes of 14 year old Esch who, pregnant by a young man who dismisses her as a slut when she reveals her pregnancy, seeks to escape her hard-scrabble life through mythology. Esch and her siblings have largely raised themselves since their mother died in childbirth 7 years befor More...

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