sarahxify's Reviews (703)

I read this while I was on holiday and I got completely sucked in. It's an immersive and epic story with well-drawn, complex characters. I think it would make a fantastic book to discuss for a book club if your book club doesn't mind a longer read. 

I also talk about this book in episodes 54 and 55 of The Bookcast Club podcast. 

Ep 54: https://www.thebookcastclub.com/podcast/episode/4a6e05b0/54-book-club-the-mermaid-of-black-conch-by-monique-roffey

Ep 55: https://www.thebookcastclub.com/podcast/episode/4c3f375e/55-upcoming-book-to-movie-adaptations

A fresh take on some familar fantasy tropes. I would recommend this for middle grade readers who enjoy Percy Jackson. 

 

Kindred is one of those books I have always meant to read. It tells the story of a black woman, Dana, in 1970s Los Angeles, who time travels to a plantation in Maryland in the pre-Civil War era. She is taken as a slave by the plantation owner and is transported back and forth between her own time and the time at the plantation, for reasons unknown to her. As well as discussing the realities of slavery during this era, the novel also examines the legacy of slavery and the inequalities that persist in contemporary America. 

Kindred was published in 1979, during a time when science fiction and fantasy were dominated by stories of white men. Butler was writing something new and different; something that was intersectional, something that examined inequality and structural oppression. That being said, as a 21st century reader, I thought it was a good novel, but I wasn’t really as blown away by it as I expected to be. I actually found the storytelling and characters a little flat and unimpressive. Initially I was really disappointed by this, but now I’ve had a few weeks to think about it, I realise that it’s probably a good thing that I wasn’t as taken by Kindred as I expected to be. If it were as radical and noteworthy today as it was in the 70s, it would be a sad testament to the progress of science fiction! 

If you enjoy science fiction and/or fantasy I think it is definitely worth picking up, especially if you enjoy writers like NK Jemisin and Naomi Alderman.  

At the beginning of this novel, I was very compelled by the story and characters but unfortunately as the novel wore on, I found it became increasingly sentimental and unbelievable. The plot points tied up in way I found overly convenient and the characterisation seemed to give way to make space for the plot. 

For fans of Days Without End by Sebastian Barry and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. 

Woman is raped and impregnated by a man. Man feels guilty about it, forces her to stay with him because that would apparently be best for her. Zero effort is made to try and help the woman get back to where she was taken from. Woman is given no narrative voice whatsoever (including later on, I skipped through the book to find out if we ever hear from her perspective). No thank you. 

I enjoyed this debut a lot more the second time around. It uses a lot of fantasy tropes, but with a great sensitivity to cause and effect and consequences. I think it's quite a strong novel until the end, where the author seems to struggle a bit with ending it - the last quarter drags on quite a bit. I will definitely be checking out the next one in this series.