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abbie_ 's review for:
The Book of Night Women
by Marlon James
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
I just finished The Book of Night Women this morning and I need a minute… It’s every bit as impactful as A Brief History of Seven Killings, maybe even more so? As the title would suggest, the main cast is made up of women and I have no doubt Lilith, Homer, Gorgon, Pallas and the others will stay vividly alive in my head for a long long time.
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The Book of Night Women is told through Lilith’s eyes, a girl born into slavery on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. It’s the latter half of the eighteenth century and the entire island has been tense with uprisings and rebellions, the whispers of freedom. Lilith finds herself entangled in a clandestine council made up of other enslaved women, plotting a revolt which will involve the whole of Jamaica.
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Two similarities with Seven Killings (despite very different subject matter): 1. James’ prose is stunning, once you get into the rhythm it’s impossible to put down. 2. The characters are so vivid and well thought out that they leap off the page. Undoubtedly it’s a difficult read, with James not holding back on details of rape, lynching, torture, and physical abuse. But these were the conditions forced upon the enslaved by their enslavers.
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James writes historical fiction like no one else, impossible to look away from, impossible to deny.