A review by alanathehangry
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
5.0
What a heavy, heart-wrenching, important book. The writing was devastatingly beautiful. Ward was careful with her writing, used images that tied directly to the characters, their environment, their emotional state, or the political state of systematic racism. It seemed to pour right from her gut, from the characters' guts, punching into my gut.
The plot was captivating, if sometimes hard to bear regarding characters' choices. I wanted to scream at them, sometimes, tell them not to fall back into the same mistakes again and again. I loved JoJo and his fierce love for his sister, his desire for the truth, his quiet strength.
This book is important. It's intense. It's beautiful. It's devastating. It's poetic. But it's important. It paints the story of a family broken by racism, by violence, by the slavery by which our country grew. It paints it with blood and you feel every cut. Every American should read this. Slavery wasn't long ago and the racism that flourished under that abomination still rages rampant, perhaps under a nicer-looking visage.
The plot was captivating, if sometimes hard to bear regarding characters' choices. I wanted to scream at them, sometimes, tell them not to fall back into the same mistakes again and again. I loved JoJo and his fierce love for his sister, his desire for the truth, his quiet strength.
This book is important. It's intense. It's beautiful. It's devastating. It's poetic. But it's important. It paints the story of a family broken by racism, by violence, by the slavery by which our country grew. It paints it with blood and you feel every cut. Every American should read this. Slavery wasn't long ago and the racism that flourished under that abomination still rages rampant, perhaps under a nicer-looking visage.