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adarre's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
3.0
It was an adventurous life but the great English talent of making everything boring.
danparrock's review against another edition
slow-paced
I feel awful writing this about someone's actual account of being enslaved, but this was just boring.
Equiano spends so much time talking about boats. I feel as if there is a difference between not wanting to relay the trauma of slavery for the reader, and just not discussing it for most of the book. He constantly writes favourably about the people who are literally enslaving him; bad things tend to only be done by the random racists he encounters.
Towards the end he becomes really self-righteous about his faith, which I felt really uncomfortable about.
Equiano spends so much time talking about boats. I feel as if there is a difference between not wanting to relay the trauma of slavery for the reader, and just not discussing it for most of the book. He constantly writes favourably about the people who are literally enslaving him; bad things tend to only be done by the random racists he encounters.
Towards the end he becomes really self-righteous about his faith, which I felt really uncomfortable about.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Violence and Colonisation
nicolecatania's review against another edition
3.0
I’ve never read about the slave trade from the perspective of a slave, so this was really insightful. The most interesting part to me was how he, as a freed slave, participates in the slave trade himself, and his reasons for doing so. It would have liked it more as a more edited version, because there’s a lot of unnecessary detail and he’s kind of a bad writer (as the author himself admits). Points were made though!