This was a really heavy read. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed it, because the word “enjoy” sounds like something that should be applied to less stressful experiences. But it’s absolutely a masterfully crafted novel that I’m glad to have read. The way it shines a light on dark times and dark places is fascinating, and I greatly appreciated the focus on the innate human drive for survival and how it can be both a saving grace and a downfall. The narrative explores a lot of things about systemic oppression and generational trauma, but it doesn’t provide answers to all the questions, including the probably most important one: “So how do we live with all this in our pasts?” It very much—purposefully, I feel—leaves the reader to search for it on their own.

It’s hard for me to talk about favorite parts or aspects of the books because my main emotional takeaway from it is, “Wow, this hurts.” But there are absolutely specific thinks I’ve greatly appreciated in terms of how they’re conveyed and how that emotional impact is delivered. In particular, it’s Dana’s second time in the past when she has to witness the patrollers’ brutality toward a slave and she starkly realizes how much more terrible it is in real life compared to all the movies she’s seen, how she’s not prepared to see this and live with it. It’s how her white husband eventually ended up time traveling with her and the stark difference in their perceptions of the nineteenth century, how he just couldn’t grasp certain things he wasn’t at the risk of falling victim to. It’s most of Dana’s interactions with Alice, especially the scene where she lays out Alice’s options regarding Rufus’s interest in her (that one made my blood run cold more than anything else in the book, and there’s a lot of darkness in the book), and a far later one where Alice speaks to Dana about her reasons for wanting, needing to run away. That last one really shows how much Dana has been changed by her experiences, how much she’s internalized from them despite being literally a person from another era.

The writing feels very modern—there was only one time when I was starkly reminded that this was written in the 1970s: a very casual use of the R-word during a flashback threw me off a little. Speaking of those flashbacks, I really liked them—the scenes at the beginning of every new part depicting Dana’s life before the time traveling madness started, her relationship with Kevin, the reactions of their respective families. That extra content provided a sort of a bridge between her present and the past she kept getting plunged in, showing how while the world has come a long way, the past still left scars, and those scars are going to keep being there for a while. 

If I absolutely had to dig for flaws, I would probably mention that sometimes, it was a little too obvious that the characters here are just vehicles for conveying specific ideas and themes, and I would maybe like them to feel more like they could exist outside of this very specific narrative. But this is also one of those books that is completely built around a set of ideas and themes, so it’s less of an actual flaw and more of a “this dish contained parsley, which I like less than I like dill or spring onions” type of complaint.