Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - The Confessions of Frannie Langton

A very well-researched unfolding story. Maybe the writing style wasn't quite my favorite. But great for reflecting on parallels between the anti-slavery movement Brits of then and the the Black-square-posters of today - both finding social justice trendy, but not really looking to commit to actionable change.

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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

The Confessions of Frannie Langton was a perfect book for June, what with it being Pride month and Read Caribbean month. It’s historical fiction, set in both Jamaica and Georgian England and centres on Frannie Langton, a servant and former slave who is accused of murdering her employers. While Frannie can’t recall what happened that fateful night, what she does remember, the story of her life and how she came to be in the dock, is quite the story - one that is definitely worth reading. It involves a childhood on a Jamaican sugar plantation, being raised by an enslaved woman but also taught to read, being forced to serve as scientific assistant on warped and horrific experiments, and then taken to England (where she is free technically but certainly not in reality) and given to another man who puts her to work as a servant. A relationship with her mistress, an opium user, leads to tragic consequences.

I was absorbed in Frannie’s story from beginning to end. It’s certainly a fresh take on the gothic novel, a story which has some initial passing similarities to Jane Eyre but goes so much further. It takes a pointed look at the intersectionality of race, gender, class and sexuality and lays bare the worst excesses of a “science” driven by racism. I was constantly struck by white men acting atrociously and believing they had some divine right to control and direct the lives of others, especially women and moreso when then woman was Black. The story also highlighted how Black knowledge was both feared yet also exploited by white men.

The plot was multi-layered with many additional themes and sub-plots. Occasionally it felt a bit much, especially towards the end of the book, but Collins’s writing and Frannie’s voice always pulled me back.

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bodiesinbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

📚 What a page turner! Right from the start I had to know what happened to Frannie every step of the way, even as things got increasingly dark.
📚 This book does feature a forbidden sapphic romance, but I appreciated that neither party had an existential crisis over it.
📚 This book is full of complex, complicated characters and it doesn't let anyone off the hook for the choices they made.
📚 It's a gothic novel not in the sense of the supernatural, but in that the truth of our racist history is grim and unspeakable.
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Content warnings: addiction, alcoholism, child abuse, child death, death, domestic abuse, drug abuse, emotional abuse, incest, homophobia,medical content, medical trauma, miscarriage, misogyny, physical abuse, racial slurs, racism, rape, sexism, slavery, sexual violence, suicide, torture, trafficking, and violence.

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