Reviews

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

nessareadsbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective fast-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

5.0

lisa_spencer's review against another edition

5.0

Slow start, until the gut punch you expect from Ward

brittnoble16's review against another edition

5.0

Almost the entire book feels like that strange and heated moment right before a storm hits. Even though Katrina herself only appears in the very end, Ward creates that hazy, tense build-up throughout the novel. When Katrina finally hits, you realize that you were holding your breath for 200 pages. Ward escapes falling back on the "pregnant black teen" stereotype and creates a protagonist who walks the line between her flowing poetic prose and narration and the culturally and regionally realistic dialect in which she speaks with her brothers and peers. The Medea/Jason myth is woven throughout, and the parallels between Esch and her fellow protagonist, a dog named China, are entrancing and downright beautiful. One of the best books I've read this year.

glitterbomb47's review against another edition

4.0

Very sad yet beautiful book.

baylithill's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

crikeyastoria's review against another edition

4.0

This book was gorgeous. The love the children have for each other in the face of adversity, poverty, hunger and neglect is fierce and unstoppable. The way they interact with each other (the carrying of junior, skeet and easch in the field by the white persons house) is just so tender and raw. The last 50 pages were utterly breathtaking.

I will agree that simile and metaphor are a bit overused. Sometimes (especially in the middle) I got lost with what was happening bc everything was a metaphor for something else. I got lost in the language?

Gorgeous book, the beginning and end were fabulous. The middle could have used another edit in my opinion? Overall loved

gregory_glover's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.75

Fortitude Required.  Definitely pay attention to the trigger warnings. There's a lot of very rough stuff here, but the careful crafting of characters, atmosphere, and landscape, along with dialect and dialogue make this nearly perfect, nearly a masterpiece. There are only a few places where it felt like the author should have stopped short of hammering the point home...or suggest rather than state explicitly. Still, WOW!

nglofile's review

4.0

Not an easy book, but tremendously evocative and unforgettable.

audiobook note: Cherise Boothe voices Esch with purity, power, heartbreak.

re-read (print): June 2014

conradc4's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

eabbott02's review

challenging dark emotional reflective fast-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

4.75