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A review by makealongstorycourt
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
I think this book is unratable.
Honestly, I couldn’t describe this book if I tried. After my lovely buddy reader sent me some articles about this one and Ward’s inspiration for it, I was floored.
Agency is a huge theme of this book, and it’s not as crystal clear in the prose as it is in the intention behind the novel itself.
Tbh I was a bit shocked myself to hear Ward had written a slavery novel — there are so many of these out there and it can really be overdone at times unless an author is careful with their approach.
But holy shit, this one. Even though it’s marketed as a novel about slavery, this redefined that entire subgenre of black literature. This is a modern classic. It achieved its purpose of humanizing the experience of enslaved people, giving them AGENCY over something in their lives - with this one, as Ward mentions in her interview, she focused on spiritual agency (because all other types of agency were stripped from enslaved people).
Fucking insanely brilliant. Just read it and you’ll know what I mean!
Honestly, I couldn’t describe this book if I tried. After my lovely buddy reader sent me some articles about this one and Ward’s inspiration for it, I was floored.
Agency is a huge theme of this book, and it’s not as crystal clear in the prose as it is in the intention behind the novel itself.
Tbh I was a bit shocked myself to hear Ward had written a slavery novel — there are so many of these out there and it can really be overdone at times unless an author is careful with their approach.
But holy shit, this one. Even though it’s marketed as a novel about slavery, this redefined that entire subgenre of black literature. This is a modern classic. It achieved its purpose of humanizing the experience of enslaved people, giving them AGENCY over something in their lives - with this one, as Ward mentions in her interview, she focused on spiritual agency (because all other types of agency were stripped from enslaved people).
Fucking insanely brilliant. Just read it and you’ll know what I mean!