Reviews

The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau

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miriamberger's review against another edition

3.0

Just finished this book for book club, ahead of schedule! Interesting characters but hard to understand some of their motives (and connect with most of them). The writing was excellent though!

libbymon's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

victoria14's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

probablyromance's review against another edition

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5.0

This book starts out languidly and for the first 200 pages it put me in a trance like state. The writing is beautiful and if you feel a connection to the southern climate and environment then it will make your heart swell to read such beautiful descriptions.

Like a cold bucket of water everything happens at once and I was immediately feeling a thousand emotions. Even the most casual description of old plantations was revolting. The casual, dull-witted, and petty racism made me so sad and angry. In my personal opinion the main characters didn’t have any growth in understanding what it meant to be black in the south.

In the moment the feminist ending felt good. Personally, I love revenge narratives. Unfortunately I still felt nauseated by how uneven the characters growth was. She’s still just a terrible person at the end and it makes me sad that she missed the best part of her grandfather.

I would recommend this to an audience that has the maturity to thoughtfully consider the story itself and then how this book has aged. I’d like to read a biography on this author before I made any assumptions.

dommdy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I love epic family stories set in the South and I despise racism. There is a thread of racism in this story that is muted and ignored that eventually results in an appalling rising crescendo that is utterly destructive.