Book Review: Romance in Marseille

 

Book Review: Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay 

Goodreads Description: Buried in the archive for almost ninety years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers--collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States. Feeling flush after his legal payout, Lafala doubles back to Marseille and resumes his trans-African affair with Aslima, a Moroccan courtesan. With its scenes of black bodies fighting for pleasure and liberty even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, McKay's novel explores the heritage of slavery amid an unforgiving modern economy. This first-ever edition of Romance in Marseille includes an introduction by McKay scholars Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell that places the novel within both the "stowaway era" of black cultural politics and McKay's challenging career as a star and skeptic of the Harlem Renaissance.

My Review: If I had to sum up Claude McKay’s Romance in Marseille in three words, it’d be: queer, punny, and unsatisfying. There’s a lot of elements to like: disability rep, a black man’s success against white society, gender play and fluid openness to sexuality, but the ending undermined a lot of the positives and left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Lafala is a young sailor who travels the world guided by his wit and whimsy, but while stowed away on an American ship, he ends up with frostbite that requires him to amputate both feet. In a twist of fate, Lafala meets a white lawyer while lying in recovery who helps him sue the shipping company for damages. After winning his case, Lafala skips town before the lawyer is able to scam him out of his share and returns to the port town Marseille to reconnect with old friends. Now a rich man, the people of Marseille clamor for Lafala's attention-- and his money-- but Lafala manages to stay one step ahead of his potential scammers at every turn. In this way, the novel is great. It's the story of a black man who, despite his hardships, outsmarts scammers and white oppressors to escape to paradise. Unfortunately, this feels muddied at the end, as his found family are also the people attempting to scam him, confusing their motivations and allegiances. This is what makes the book interesting to some, as they can analyze the characters from multiple perspectives, but to me it reads like a tragedy wherein greed wins over love, loyalty or friendship. The found family that’s established is sacrificed so Lafala remains the smartest man in the room, and the payoff doesn’t feel worth the sacrifice. 

The representation in this book is wonderful. While there’s not a lot of outwardly queer characters, there is heavy implication that certain characters are gay. Characters also question and play with gender, whether through clothing, joking around, or debating the nature of gender roles. As well, Lafala spends the entire book without legs and is never defined by his disability. There’s a nice balance between how it affects his life/mental health and how it doesn't make him less of a person. McKay’s writing is also delightfully punny. He plays with metaphor and symbols, twists language to suit his needs, and utilizes sharp-witted wordplay that is both funny and thought provoking. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A sharp-witted queer tale with excellent disability rep and an unsatisfying finish. 

Book Review: Tilly and the Crazy Eights

Book Review: Tilly and the Crazy Eights by Monique Gray Smith 

Goodreads Description: When Tilly receives an invitation to help drive eight elders on their ultimate bucket list road trip to Albuquerque for the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, she impulsively says yes. Before she knows it, Tilly has said goodbye to her family and is behind the wheel--ready to embark on an adventure that will transform her in ways she could not predict. Just as it will for each and every one of the elders on the trip, who soon dub themselves "the Crazy Eights."

Tilly and the Crazy Eights each choose a stop to make along the way--somewhere they've always wanted to go or something they've wanted to experience. Their plan is to travel to Las Vegas, Sedona, and the Redwood Forests, with each destination the inspiration for secrets and stories to be revealed. The trip proves to be powerful medicine as they laugh, heal, argue, and reveal hopes and dreams along the way.

With friendships forged, love found, hearts broken and mended, Tilly and the Crazy Eights feel ready for anything by the time their bus rolls to a stop in New Mexico. But are they?

My Review: This character-driven story, filled with Indigenous humour and wisdom, takes readers on a journey of healing across the United States. When Tilly is dragged on the cross-country journey with eight eccentric elders, she leaves behind her unsatisfying marriage to think about her future - and whether divorce may be the answer. Though the journey challenges Tilly, through the wisdom of the elders around her, she finds clarity on her marriage and returns home to make the best choice for herself. 

While Tilly's story is heartwarming, nothing about it resonated with me enough to make me fall in love, leading to its mediocre rating. The book is a short journey story where each character undergoes a personal transformation that reflects back on Tilly's struggle with her marriage. Despite it being a bit predictable, the characters are presented with an authenticity to them that helps the story stick its landing. The characters appear a bit flat at the beginning, but as the journey unfolds, their bucket list experiences reveal more depth and open opportunities for reader identification. 

The book is comprised of short chapters (sometimes only 2 pages), which does jolt readers out of the story. Just as a scene gets going, it stops and the book moves to a completely different scene with other characters. While this is disjointing, it does create a snapshot atmosphere that reminds me of vacation photos. The story also doesn't focus on one character and spends equal time exploring each elder's personal journey, which can make the story feel scattered. Each elder's journey is largely separate from the rest and feels loosely connected to Tilly's struggle, which is supposed to serve as the emotional throughline. The writing is straight to the point and doesn't linger on poetic language, but does contain some solid metaphoric descriptions.

Tilly and the Crazy Eights is a cute journey story with some poignant wisdom, but it just failed to connect with me in a meaningful way. Because the characters deal with issues like empty nest syndrome and physical aging, older readers may have an easier time relating to the story if they've experienced similar life events. 

TL:DR: 3/5 stars. A cute story about healing that feels a little scattered. 

Book Review: The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour

Book Review: The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour by Dawn Dumont

Goodreads Description: 'The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour' is loosely based - like, hospital-gown loose - on the true story of a group of Indigenous dancers who left Saskatchewan and toured through Europe in the 1970s. Dawn Dumont brings her signature razor-sharp wit and impeccable comedic timing to this hilarious, warm, and wildly entertaining novel.

My Review: When the usual dance troupe gets food poisoning. John Greyeyes is tasked with leading a replacement troupe through a series of powwows across Europe -- except the replacement dancers can't dance, and John only has a few days to whip them into shape. Along the tour, the crew stumbles into a series of wacky adventures, including a plane hijacking, an FBI smuggling investigation, identity theft, and a break and enter at the Vatican that lands one of the dancers in jail. Dawn Dumont has crafted a riot of a book that is both utterly ridiculous and grounds readers with solid, heartfelt moments. 

While Prairie Chicken is a wild ride shot through with humour, it does address topics like racism, residential schools, and homophobia with the seriousness that they deserve. It doesn't linger on these topics, but they surface as important aspects to character arcs. Due to trauma, several characters are closed off to love, but over the course of the novel, they begin to heal their trauma and open themselves up to love again (including self-love). Watching these silly little characters grow and learn to love themselves despite their flaws was truly endearing. It's hard not to fall in love these characters, even if we don't spend much time directly in their heads. 

The narrative has next to no introspection -- the prose is entirely focused on the action of the scene. And holy, there is a lot. The book features a large cast of main characters and they all take part in almost every scene, which makes things busy. The book also doesn't linger on moments and keeps the action moving as much as possible. While some might find the busyness overwhelming, the writing is balanced and scenes flow so the reader doesn't lose the thread of the narrative. Coupled with it's style of humour, the book feels like a Benny Hill sketch, in a good way. 

At the end of the day, The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour is pure, heartwarming fun. I laughed so much while reading it and it still brightens my day to think of this ridiculous story. Plus it's got a gay Indigenous cowboy who is Done With Everyone's Shit™, so it's got a special place in my heart. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. A hilarious and heartfelt story of a ragtag crew that crosses Europe to find themselves.

Book Review: Passing

Book Review: Passing by Nella Larsen 

Goodreads Description: Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband.

Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to "pass," is as timely as ever. 

My Review: "It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it." 

Nella Larsen's Passing is a tour-de-force of character study and political commentary. As the title implies, it takes a closer look at the act of passing, where a minoritized person is able to pass as a member of the dominant group, and the resulting effects on one's psyche. 

The story follows Irene, a light-skinned black woman who has spent her life doing everything she's supposed to - she's a good wife and mother, a law-abiding citizen, and an upstanding member of "the race." Yet within the first few pages, we can see Irene's repressed desires lurking just below the surface. She wants to be a good representative of "the race," yet she wants freedom from that responsibility. She wants her husband to want her, yet she's so enamored with her beautiful friend, Claire, that it borders on homoerotic. Claire is a light-skinned black woman who has been living her life as a white person, passing even to her racist white husband. For some reason, Claire can have it all - life as a white person and confidence in her black identity, and it drives Irene mad. Envy becomes obsession, until Irene starts to feel threatened by Claire's challenge to her worldview, and decides she must defend herself. Though the book is a character study on the psychological effects of repression and racism on identity, Larsen never lets us get too close to Irene's thoughts, inviting an air of mystery. Does Irene hate Claire because she passes as white? Is she jealous? Does Claire actually threaten Irene's marriage, or was it all in her head? 

This book has so much longing slammed in its less than 100 pages - desire to be someone else, desire to be free, desire for a better life, desire to return home to your people, desire for queer love - and it's contrasted against intense repression and restraints - racism, segregation, heteronormativity, doing what's expected - making it a masterwork of tension. Irene wants so much, but the major thing holding her back is herself, which becomes very obvious once Claire re-enters her life. She is both victim and oppressor, having internalized society's messages about what she's expected to do to the point where she's sacrificed her own wants and happiness in exchange for security. This book is not a queer story, but it is heavily queer coded. Irene is very focused on Claire's beauty and irresistibility throughout the text. She insists to herself that she wants nothing to do with Claire, but as soon as Claire makes contact, Irene falls over herself to see her. She also expresses that she's powerless against Claire's influence, which gives the impression of a queer person struggling with their attraction. Irene's eventual vilification of Claire also speaks to Irene's attempt to distance herself from those feelings in order to retain the stability and safety that comes from her straight marriage. 

I really loved this book. As someone who can relate to the act of passing, it offers an incredibly interesting perspective on the practice. I also love diving into the minds of unreliable, flawed narrators, especially when they make you doubt if you're really getting the whole story. 

TL;DR: All in all, 5/5 stars. A high tension, psychological character study exploring the nuances of passing, deception, and repression. 

Book Review: Firekeeper's Daughter

 

Book Review: Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley 

Goodreads Description: As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in—both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. When her family is struck by tragedy, Daunis puts her dreams on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother’s hockey team.

After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home. How far will she go to protect her community if it means tearing apart the only world she’s ever known?

My Review: Alright, peeps, I've got a good one for you today. This was, hands down, the best YA novel I've read in years. Every element was expertly handled, from the characters, to the plot, to its believability, all the way to its spectacular ending. Best of all, it doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to YA fiction - it honours many well-loved tropes while also breathing new life into these plot elements through a fresh Anishinaabe perspective.

Firekeeper's Daughter is a crime story done right. Many YA crime novels struggle with believability and don't fully justify why teenagers are the leads in criminal investigations when the police are RIGHT THERE. Why would an adult put a child in danger when there are so many other options they could take? For this story, it's the isolation and insular Ojibway community that justifies Daunis' involvement in the undercover case. The police have already introduced an Indigenous undercover cop pretending to be a teenager to get into the crime ring, but due to the community's culture, the police can't get close enough to the suspects to gather evidence. Daunis, however, is someone who can get them in - not only is she Indigenous with direct ties to the community, but she also has direct ties to the suspects, the land, and is well-versed in chemistry. The plot kicks off with the murder of Daunis' best friend, which reveals that on Daunis' reserve, someone has built a drug trafficking ring that stretches across multiple states. A group has been synthesizing powerful meth with an unknown compound, likely a plant that grows around the reservation, and it's the intersection of culture, intelligence, and her social positioning in the community that gives Daunis the edge in solving the case. I loved that this book took the labour out of my suspension of disbelief. 

Daunis has become one of my favourite YA heroines, possibly ever. She's got a distinct personality that resists falling into the "good girl/good student" trope that plagues many YA heroines. Daunis may be smart and more or less on the straight and narrow, but she resists black and white binaries -- she drinks and parties with her friends, she isn't scared of the meth users in her community, even if she doesn't partake, and she has no guilt over using prescription pain medications to cope with hard times. The book doesn't problematize her substance use or riskier behaviours, and instead treats them as a couple of dots on the diverse pointillism painting that is Daunis. Many YA novels seem preoccupied with "right" and "wrong" behaviours, especially from the main character, and end up pushing puritans ideals of the Madonna-whore complex, even if they don't mean to. Most often, they lean towards the "good girl" trope, where the MC wouldn't dream of drinking or drugs, though some protagonists do lean into their problematic behaviours and the narrative is quick to reinforce these behaviours as wrong, dangerous, or shameful. Firekeeper's Daughter avoids all of that moralizing by showing that these points of Daunis' character, whether it's something "good" like her intelligence or "bad" like her substance use, never end up defining her.

Boulley's masterful character crafting skills go beyond her main character -- everyone in this book was so realistic and well-rounded, but they also engage with character tropes in fascinating ways. Boulley is also quite subtle about this character depth, introducing small moments that don't stand out, but add layers to the roles we're used to seeing. Lily, the best friend with the big personality, becomes more than just the side-kick. Boulley contrasts the strong parts of her personality with gentler moments and circumstances while still honouring the original trope. Lily is loud but small, protector but also victim, and the wise one whose always getting into trouble. Jamie, the new love interest in town, also engages with traditional tropes in an interesting way. He is very much the Bland Boyfriend trope - a seemingly perfect man with no personality outside of the protagonist, yet Boulley gives us plot reasons for why he's like this. The fact that he's largely disconnected from his roots also becomes a major point in their relationship later in the story, which is a fascinating twist on what's usually just lazy writing. The Fake Boyfriend trope also plays a part in the story, but unlike most versions of this trope, it doesn't feel contrived, which is saying something for a trope that's best described as, "There were a thousand other ways out of this situation, why did you pick this one?" 

All in all, a really riveting book that takes what's familiar and beloved about YA and elevates it to new levels. The writing is crisp, clear, and beautiful, with many lines oozing wisdom and maturity. The way plot elements collide with aspects of Indigenous culture and spirituality is proof that you can take a story that's been done a thousand times and completely transform it with a diverse setting and perspective. If you only pick up one book this year, make it this one. I can't recommend it enough. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. The best YA crime novel out there. Period. 

Book Review: This Dark Endeavour

 

Book Review: This Dark Endevour by Kenneth Oppel 

Goodreads Description: Victor Frankenstein leads a charmed life. He and his twin brother, Konrad, and their beautiful cousin Elizabeth take lessons at home and spend their spare time fencing and horseback riding. Along with their friend Henry, they have explored all the hidden passageways and secret rooms of the palatial Frankenstein chateau. Except one.

The Dark Library contains ancient tomes written in strange languages and filled with forbidden knowledge. Their father makes them promise never to visit the library, but when Konrad becomes deathly ill, Victor knows he must find the book that contains the recipe for the legendary Elixir of Life.

The elixir needs only three ingredients. But impossible odds, dangerous alchemy and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn.

Victor knows he must not fail. Yet his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science and love—and how much he is willing to sacrifice.

My Review: Kenneth Oppel has had a special place in my heart since I was a kid, when his bat-tastic Silverwing series swooped into my life and made my oddball ass feel less alone. So, years ago, when I spotted a Frankenstein prequel by Kenneth Oppel, I was quick to snatch it up, but the book languished on my TBR shelf the last few years as more pressing titles jumped the queue. I finally found the time to pick it up, and to say I was disappointed would have been an understatement. This Dark Endevour is DULL. It's predictable. It's more than forgettable, it's why-bother-reading-able. The book's greatest weakness is that it's a Frankenstein prequel; its saving grace the target audience, who likely have not read the original Frankenstein and can't compare Oppel's changes to the original text. Yet even then, the book falls flat: the story is uninspired, the romantic and plot twists are contrived, lacking any sense of stakes, and the characters feel ripped out of the wrong time period. 

Slapping Frankenstein on this book leads to natural comparisons between the texts, but ironically, knowing the basics of Frankenstein makes the plot and twist ending of This Dark Endevour painfully obvious. Oppel introduces readers to his Frankenstein twins: Victor Frankenstein, the savant scientist that science-fiction knows all too well, and Oppel's creation, Konrad - the virtuous mirror-inversion of Victor, whose flaws have been bent backwards into much a nobler configuration. Konrad is sweet, he's compassionate, he's sensitive and gentle, but also brave, just, and level-headed - often the voice of reason, reigning Victor in when his lofty ideals pull them off the moral path. Yet this inversion of Victor's traits also reveals that Oppel either dislikes or doesn't understand the nuance within Shelley's Victor Frankenstein, as Oppel emphasizes Victor's negative traits - greed, ambition, stubbornness, solipsism - and crafts Konrad as the opposite of that, making both characters feel partly artificial and casting them in 'angel' and 'devil' roles. In the original text, Victor spent much of his time reigning himself back in, and the balance between doing wrong and trying to correct course is what made him so fascinating. Oppel's Victor feels more akin to the mad-scientist representations of Victor Frankenstein that pop-culture is more familiar with. 

Early in the book, Konrad falls deathly ill, motivating Victor and his friends Elizabeth and Henry to seek out alchemic knowledge that would lead them to the Elixir of Life to safe Konrad's life. At this point, the fact that this is a Frankenstein tale immediately gave away the ending. This is, after all, Victor Frankenstein, the man known for bringing back the dead, not for saving the living, so before I'd even opened the book (as Konrad's illness is spelled out on the back cover), it was painfully obvious that despite all efforts, Konrad wasn't going to make it. Oppel tries to combat this by drawing out the tension of Konrad's illness and faking out the reader in regards to his recovery, but the efforts fall painfully flat.  

The overall plot is organized around a three-point fetch quest that quickly became predictable and dull. Victor and his friends connect with an alchemist who tasks them with collecting the three ingredients needed to save Konrad, and holy crap was this boring. No amount of cool glow-in-the-dark moss, demon fish, or wolf's eye alchemy could distract from the terrifyingly predictable arcs of find thing - attacked by monsters - barely escape with item. This formula repeats again at the finale as trusted characters turn on each other and the actual creation of the Elixir becomes yet another fetch mission. The story could have worked if it was in a video game, where the agency of players could have mitigated some of the boredom from the plot's predictability. Instead, the reader is dragged along, beat by expected beat, without anything to change up the formula.

Finally, the characters. As I already mentioned, Victor and Konrad are two-dimensional representations of the "good" and "bad" twin, although thankfully this becomes less pronounced as Konrad becomes bedridden and less of an active character. Elizabeth was also difficult to stomach through much of the text. Many times, she asserts her equality to the boys by declaring that she's braver, stronger, and more tenacious than others (certainly Henry). The characters often have a "Don't You Know, Bob?" moment where they recount when Elizabeth bested the boys, was braver than them, or, GASP - wore trousers. These conversations feel so contrived, like Elizabeth is arguing against someone that isn't even there, asserting her autonomy and independence when no one was questioning it (other characters, narrative, even audience). I can't help but wonder why Oppel felt the need to assure audiences of Elizabeth's Girl Power! and can only assume it's because of the time period the book is set in. Finally, Oppel establishes an interesting romantic conflict between Victor, Elizabeth, and Konrad, but introduces this too late (so it feels like it comes out of nowhere, when this romantic tension could and should have been underlying their interactions from the beginning). This tension also doesn't lead to much besides some simmering resentment and moments of will-they-won't-they. I wish this romantic tension was better defined, upped the stakes, and actually lead to consequences in their relationship. It would have been nice to see that simmering resentment actually pitch up to a boil. 

All in all, this book isn't worth the read. Even as a fun, dumb pulp read, there's nothing really fun about it. With how predictable the whole plotline was, it would have been smarter to start the plot at book 2, where Konrad is already dead and build to how Victor plans to bring him back, even if that would have had its own complications. That concept at least has some creative possibilities within in, but this book left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't care to see where Oppel takes this concept. It's dead in the water if you ask me, and not worth the lightning for its resurrection. 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. Boring and uninspired. 

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 

Goodreads Description: Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person—no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

My Review: When it was originally released in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God drew considerable backlash for its depiction of "average" black Americans, especially from other prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The authors of this movement used art to argue for social change by depicting black people as educated, artistic, and activist - bucking against long-held racist beliefs that black people were intellectually or culturally inferior. However, these authors were largely trapped within, and often conformed to, white standards of success in order to gain equality and approval in America. Zora Neale Hurtson's book took a completely different approach. Hurston worked as an anthropologist as well as a writer, and was more interested in examining what made black communities unique. She depicted "average" black Americans without judgement -- reveling in various accents and speaking habits, depicted communal storytelling and humour that some might consider Vaudeville-esque -- and even critiqued the educated black characters within her text for their condescension and arrogance. This drew a fair bit of backlash from other black writers who argued that the book resembled caricaturesque minstrel shows, however, this feels like a grave misunderstanding of the nuance within Hurston's book. When analyzed today, we can see how Hurston's book is a celebration of black culture in America, with its insistence to see these people fully realized, with all their jokes, language, and culture accepted as is. While respectability politics has had its uses throughout civil rights movements, Hurston's book reminds us that if people of colour only measure their success through white standards, it ultimately leaves them isolated from themselves and their community. In that way, Their Eyes feels ahead of its time, pushing for a radical acceptance of people as they are rather than purposing an ideal for what they should be. 

As you can tell from the short summary, it's difficult to pin down the exact plot of Their Eyes. This book is a lot of things. It's a love story, a coming-of-age tale, it's a feminist text, a story of self-actualization, it's an anthropologic and linguistic exploration of black culture, with a profoundly optimistic look on race relations. It focuses on Janie Crawford as she grows up through her three marriages, coming to understand the meaning of love, marriage, and agency. As many coming of age stories are, the book is slow paced, focusing on slow-burning character arcs and mundane plot events over dramatic twists. Over the course of the book, Janie subtly moves away from the expectations of white culture and finds self-actualization and agency through embracing "blackness." Janie's first husband unquestioningly follows white culture and heteronormativity, expecting Janie to fall into her "wifely" role. Despite living in a black community, her second husband pushes both himself and Janie towards classist elitism that pits "respectable blackness" against the "common folk," and ends up isolating Janie from her community and culture. Janie resists this influence, and through her third husband, connects with the black community and finds more happiness, passion, equality, and agency, despite living closer to poverty and instability. In this way, Hurston bucks against respectability politics and shows that if black people "behaved like whites wanted them to," it would leave them isolated from each other, their culture, and themselves. 

Hurston's novel also showcases a profound optimism when it comes to race relations - focusing very little on racism and instead showing black people living their lives, largely unhindered by oppression. She features the town of Eatonville as a major setting, which was a real town and the first self-governing all-black municipality in the United States (incorporated in 1887). Eatonville in the book faces no trouble from white people and exists unremarkably. Hurston doesn't fluff up the town's importance or incite any racist drama, it's just another setting. The book still features racism in pieces, such as when one of Janie's husbands is forced by the Red Cross to do manual labor and he has to run from gunfire to escape, but the book doesn't linger on these moments, giving it a strange sort of optimism and freedom, despite the time period it's set in. 

The book features a lot of heavy accents, phonetic spelling, and slang to really capture the "language" these communities spoke, and don't get me wrong, Hurston does an excellent job with these accents. She captures their mannerisms and culture in a way that feels rich, realistic, and nuanced, but every character speaks with a heavy accent. Every. One. Not to mention, this book is very dialogue heavy. There are whole pages where two or more characters are talking, wherein the conversation is lobbed between two speakers without much to break it up. Even white characters, when they appear, speak in their own heavy, difficult-to-read accents. While this dialogue is fascinating from an anthropological/sociological/linguistic point of view, I really hated reading it. Just trying to decode what characters are actually saying, with all the dropped letters, creative spelling, and phonetic sounds was a nightmare. I read this book at a snail's pace and all the decoding left little energy to actually enjoy the story. Many words had to be sounded out aloud, because they were spelled to recreate a sound, rather than a real word. "Ah" is used almost exclusively instead of "I," for example. Despite that, I have a hard time imagining this book without the accents. It feels like something would be lost without them, which reminds me of the saying, "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey." For these characters, it's not so much what they say, but how they say it. 

Aside from the heavily accented dialogue, the narrative is written in gorgeous prose that's littered with wise insights on the world, love, marriage, and growing up. Hurston especially has a lot to say about the intersection of race and gender (and to a lesser extent, class), commenting often on how oppression affects black men versus black women, while also exploring the power dynamics between married couples. The book culminates in a storm and legal trial that tests Janie's beliefs about love and marriage, both in personal and legal frameworks, and pushes her to establish agency and self-advocacy. The climax feels believable but dramatic. It fits in well with the humdrum normalcy of married life, but also instills the larger-than-life, once-in-a-lifetime type of conflict that elevates the text to the next level - pushing Janie to fully embody what she's learned about love, marriage, and agency in order to survive and thrive going forward. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A fascinating text that analyzes the intersection of race, gender, and class from a black feminist perspective.