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What Members Thought
Excellent, excellent book, though really more like 4.5 stars than 5. But I couldn't really imagine taking it down a star to 4. The story is incredibly compelling, and the narrator really pulls you in.
My one complaint was the writing style itself--the author tends to summarize things rather than detailing individual events. I suppose this makes sense given that this was the story of one person's entire life, but I would have appreciated short bursts of dialogue in the passages that basically amou ...more
My one complaint was the writing style itself--the author tends to summarize things rather than detailing individual events. I suppose this makes sense given that this was the story of one person's entire life, but I would have appreciated short bursts of dialogue in the passages that basically amou ...more
This book was engaging from the very beginning. It is told from the perspective of Aminata Diallo as an old woman who is in London helping the cause of the abolitionists. The story follows Aminata from her childhood in a small village in Africa (what is now Mali) where she is kidnapped and marched to the coast to be put on a slave ship to America, and eventually to London where she is writing her life story. I found it interesting to see not only the life of a typical slave on a plantation, but
...more
Jul 11, 2009
KrisT
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
cyber-gifts,
read-2010
One chapter and I was so immersed in this story of a young African girl only 11 rains old. Aminata Diallo witnessed the murder of her mother and was torn from her village and forced to walk several months to the coast and sold to a slave ship set for America. The story will keep you turning pages to find out what has happened to Aminata and this part of history.
This was just pure devastation, but within all the horrible-ness of Meena's story is an amazingly strong and real heroine. She is one that will stick with me for a long time. There are some characters (the Witherspoons come to mind) that didn't seem very realistic to me and there were some turns of events that seemed a bit fantastical, but as a vehicle for illustrating this period of time and all angles of the slave trade, I do understand.
The writing was very good, the book is very accessible, ...more
The writing was very good, the book is very accessible, ...more
Apr 18, 2010
Barb
marked it as to-read
Dec 28, 2011
Lindy-Lane
marked it as to-read
Nov 03, 2012
Kristen
marked it as to-read
Jan 19, 2013
Polly Bullard
marked it as to-read
