A review by garbutch
The Third Mrs. Galway, by Deirdre Sinnott
2.0
The book itself was okay but I feel complicated about it. Mainly in that it's a white author making slavery a central plot, and having a lot of AAVE dialogue. I personally wouldn't feel like it's my lane to write something like this as a white person. I haven't actually looked into the level of help that was gotten from AAVE speakers, or if there was at all, but it isn't something the average white audiobook listener would notice anyway.
(I also want to disclaim that I didn't check if the author was Black until after I finished. In future I'll probably check before reading things with these topics though.)
I also felt like the writing was very hard to follow when almost every character was treated as a POV character at some point. The audiobook did kind of help because the characters had different dialogue voices. But overall it was difficult and I didn't feel like I could predict it.
TWs:
You should also be warned before reading of pretty much all the genocide stuff relating to enslavement, in particular rape and CSA, whipping and so on. The sexual violence against Black folks happens offscreen.
Helen is assailed by the doctor a bit. There's also just the fact that Helen is 19 and her husband is significantly older (grey age). The stuff between them is largely offscreen as well.
(I also want to disclaim that I didn't check if the author was Black until after I finished. In future I'll probably check before reading things with these topics though.)
I also felt like the writing was very hard to follow when almost every character was treated as a POV character at some point. The audiobook did kind of help because the characters had different dialogue voices. But overall it was difficult and I didn't feel like I could predict it.
TWs:
You should also be warned before reading of pretty much all the genocide stuff relating to enslavement, in particular rape and CSA, whipping and so on. The sexual violence against Black folks happens offscreen.
Helen is assailed by the doctor a bit. There's also just the fact that Helen is 19 and her husband is significantly older (grey age). The stuff between them is largely offscreen as well.