A review by meshuganush
The Deep by Rivers Solomon

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is one that I will be contemplating for a long time. The way it was written really allowed us to feel Yetu's constant pain and confusion as she tries to hold onto the history while still maintaining her own identity. This was a truly remarkable mythology based on the generational trauma of the middle passage.  I didn't love the characters but I think that makes sense since Yetu's character was fairly subsumed by her role of holding the history.
I really loved the solution that they came up with and how her pain was lifted by being able to spread it out and share it with her people and by doing so she was also now able to see the beauty of the history and not just the pain.


I really recommend reading The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael Twitty, it is a spectacular nonfiction book where the author takes us through his journey to uncover the roots of southern cuisine as well as his roots as an African American whos ancestors were enslaved in the united states. It lends some beautiful context to the themes of homeland and ancestral history. 
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