pickWhat can America learn from the German efforts at Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung? Neiman argues that that long German word for “working-off-the-past” is essential if we are to move foreword in a healthy way. I found my most of criticisms to be a matter of nuance and she has her biases to watch out for politically, as do we all. This book provides good first steps toward healing. An important book about the holocaust, race, and memory culture.
so-soThis year I‘m working on getting the the books I‘ve had on my TBR the longest. I really wanted to read this in 2014 but 2022 me says it‘s just okay. The story was up and down and there were way too many coincidences.
pickAnother one down for #bookspinbingo! I quite enjoyed this one, and found the dual timelines to be engaging. Not unputdownable, but a great read! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
so-soWell all of my #24in48 reads couldn‘t be winners and this one just didn‘t really work for me. The story of Josephine, the house girl, could have been interesting but was buried beneath two timelines and too many subplots, most of them pretty ridiculous. It is sad because the plot sounded so promising.
pickA deep dive into one family‘s story. A woman who was freed from slavery and then pulled back in. And the sued for damages.
panI listened to the audio, but I‘m not going to fault the narrator for my loss of focus. I have listened to this narrator before and rated those books 4 and 5 stars (for the 5 star book, she as one of a few narrators). So, unfortunately, I did lose focus many times in this book, so I never really cared about the characters and I wasn‘t all that interested in the story
pan⭐️⭐️/5 I would skip this one. It‘s pretty problematic by today‘s standards (white woman writing from the perspective of an enslaved Black woman + white saviorism).
so-soI love the premise of this book. I love the writing and the characters. I was engaged and hungry for more from beginning to end.
However, that's also the downfall for me. I wanted more from the characters and their stories and in the end, I just didn't get it.
I would have rather seen two novels with more character depth than the one that only scraped their surfaces.
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