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mscoutj's review against another edition
4.0
Thoroughly engrossing, even if at times a bit repetitive.
mirandaroo89's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Murder
leahamyy's review
1.0
Let's be real. I didn't read this whole thing. I read maybe 40 pages, and that's being generous. I love history. A lot. So much so that I am minoring in it. I would love to read historical books all the time, but only if they're written well. This had the potential to be such a great book--a slave girl gets raped repeatedly by her master for about five years before she falls in love with another slave on the farm. That slave tells Celia (the slave girl) that it's either the master or him. Well, how does a slave girl exactly stand up to her master? That's kind of the point of being a slave--you have to do your master's bidding or be killed. So one day, Celia tells the master (who is the father of her two children) to never come by her cabin again. Of course he doesn't listen. So that night, she kills him, puts his body in the fireplace, burns him all night long, and that's the end of the master.
Sounds really awesome right? Well... you're right. It DOES sound awesome, especially considering all this happened in the first 40 pages because the rest of it is her trial because she confesses to the murder. So then there's this huge trial that I pretty much just skimmed over looking for quotes for my paper I had to write about this.
However, this was basically one big monologue by the author. It wasn't even broken up by historical documents or anything. Just one continuous essay that was not as interesting as it could have been. And this was a true story--the author literally didn't have to put any creativity or imagination into it at all--just tell Celia's story. And it was very clear that he did not put anything into it.
C for effort with finding all the documents and getting the story mostly straight, but F for the writing.
Don't read this. And if you have to for school, chapters 1-2 are setting up the master and his family. Chapter 3 is the murder (and those few pages at the end are the most interesting in the book) skip to chapter 6 or so and pull some quotes from the trial and how it affected the community. You're welcome.
Sounds really awesome right? Well... you're right. It DOES sound awesome, especially considering all this happened in the first 40 pages because the rest of it is her trial because she confesses to the murder. So then there's this huge trial that I pretty much just skimmed over looking for quotes for my paper I had to write about this.
However, this was basically one big monologue by the author. It wasn't even broken up by historical documents or anything. Just one continuous essay that was not as interesting as it could have been. And this was a true story--the author literally didn't have to put any creativity or imagination into it at all--just tell Celia's story. And it was very clear that he did not put anything into it.
C for effort with finding all the documents and getting the story mostly straight, but F for the writing.
Don't read this. And if you have to for school, chapters 1-2 are setting up the master and his family. Chapter 3 is the murder (and those few pages at the end are the most interesting in the book) skip to chapter 6 or so and pull some quotes from the trial and how it affected the community. You're welcome.
discodetective's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault
jpjordicat's review
3.0
2.5/5*
I enjoyed the subject that this book was based on, I just think I would prefer a fictional story, or maybe one that was just written like fiction. It felt, and I think this with a lot of non-fiction books that I have to read for school, too much like a textbook. I would have found it interesting to read from the character's point-of-view, not just a historian looking in.
I enjoyed the subject that this book was based on, I just think I would prefer a fictional story, or maybe one that was just written like fiction. It felt, and I think this with a lot of non-fiction books that I have to read for school, too much like a textbook. I would have found it interesting to read from the character's point-of-view, not just a historian looking in.
mpmp23's review
2.0
Felt like a bland historian was telling me about this case like it was a historical record. Yes, this story explains what happens, but do we need a precise number of how many slaves someone had in 1835, twenty years before the murder even happens? I could totally see this book as a great historical novel based on true events, but I felt like someone sat down and included every unimportant detail along with the interesting stuff. Disappointed :(
sarahreads0_0's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not reading the index or the notes! I read the story
torts's review
2.0
Some bits seemed unsubstantiated by hard evidence (like the fact that Celia was raped immediately upon being purchased by Newsom, which is referenced early on and only much later explained as a piece of evidence which arose in the trial). And there were moments in which the details presented (or rather, the lack of details)--such as the mysterious purchase of the five year old boy, the weirdness of a sick and pregnant woman burning a grown man's corpse in her cabin hearth overnight with her children sleeping there, and the implicit weirdness of her trial lawyers trying so hard to defend her on unprecedented moral grounds of a black woman having the right to protect herself from rape--seemed to be suggesting something ominous but refusing to actually speculate. I would've preferred speculation, really. Particularly given the novelistic, dramatic rendering of the grandson breathing in his father's ashes, it doesn't seem like McLaurin was opposed to editorializing.
The coverblurb said the story would be "enough to give you the sort of anger that never goes away." I was more puzzled than angry, and felt vaguely like the text was trying to manipulate me by presenting a case about which it admitted to have few hard facts. The introduction and conclusion were quite good, though. And I was a bit angry with George. Newsom was too much of a monster to get angry at, and Celia was a strange enigma with whom I felt weird empathizing anyway...
The coverblurb said the story would be "enough to give you the sort of anger that never goes away." I was more puzzled than angry, and felt vaguely like the text was trying to manipulate me by presenting a case about which it admitted to have few hard facts. The introduction and conclusion were quite good, though. And I was a bit angry with George. Newsom was too much of a monster to get angry at, and Celia was a strange enigma with whom I felt weird empathizing anyway...