Kindred in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Feb 08, 2019 Judy rated it really liked it

I put off reading this book for a long time because I kept hearing how intense it was. I didn't feel that way when I first started reading it - but a lot of the power of this book is the way it creeps up on you. Like the characters, what seems fairly clear and understandable at the beginning becomes monstrous as it progresses. Very powerful - and impressive. ...more

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Jan 19, 2017 Christine H rated it it was amazing

What a remarkable book! Even though it sometimes depicts terrible suffering, and raises serious questions about human morality, it never comes across as despairing. The story is so compelling, and Dana such a marvelous, fleshed-out character, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next.

At times I was cheering Dana on, impressed by her grit and courage, while other times I wanted to shake her and save her from her own decisions. I think Butler very deliberately crafted the narrative so the li ...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, sci-fi-fantasy, american-history

I don't know why this isn't on every high school reading list. I also don't know why it is tagged as science fiction. Yes, there is time travel, but the logistics of it are never mentioned, never made clear, and are not anywhere near the heart of the book.
At the heart of the book is the relationship between Dana and Rufus. This relationship is complicated by time and place. Their bond that runs so deep that it breaks all conventions and has the power to save and destroy both of them.
Dana is a mo ...more

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Jul 14, 2014 Jane rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, read-this-book-again

A powerful time travel account of a couple's encounter with slavery in Maryland pre-Civil War. I read this book several years ago at my son, Josh and his wife Lisa's suggestion. Very powerful. The time travel part of the story is roughly sketched in. Dana time travels when an ancestor living in the 1830's is in danger. Eventually, her husband, a white man named Kevin, time travels with her. The details of life for slaves, pre-Civil war, are brutal. I think it would be a wonderful book to help h ...more

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Mar 28, 2023 Heather rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Unexpected and phenomenal

This book was so good. So intense. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a hard-hitting look at the lives of enslaved people that is also a time-traveling sci-fi novel was what I got. I understand now why this book is so well-known. The writing is incredible, the story so compelling and even more so because so much of it is the truth about the abuses perpetuated by white people against Black people, in the roots of slavery and well into today. ...more

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