Book: The House Girl

 

This was an audiobook I listened to on Scribd. I enjoyed the reader and the story immensely. The reader not only captured the southern accent well that one felt transported to the South, but she had a great variety of voices in her inventory that almost each character sounded unique.

            The Story begins with Josephine Bell, a house slave in the year 1852. Josephine can no longer endure her lot in life and has decided to flee to the North.  The other story follows Lina a modern-day lawyer, who has just been handed an interesting and possibly life-changing case, reparations for slavery. As the story progresses you see how they are connected and how Lina is influenced by Josephine.

    The author relies heavily on exposition, hardly anything is done; mostly characters tell Lina something and that's how she mainly gets to the truth. This style can get frustrating for some I found it alright but nothing exciting. One thing that I found odd is the length of the chapters (if you could call them that) they were so long that the book felt more like 4 parts and possibly if one were to read it instead of listening it could get annoying. I don't know about you, but I often take a break or allow myself to fall asleep once a chapter is finished; you can't do that with this book unless you seriously speed read.

    I do applaud the author for at least attempting this delicate subject however I'm not a fan of the ending.

 

Spoiler warning:

So as the story progresses it is revealed how Lina and Josephine are connected. Lina is looking for a representative for her case and since Josephine has been discovered as the real artist of the most popular works of Lu Anne Bell (her master's wife). Lina sets out to find the descendants of Josephine Bell and her story. Near the end of the book, Lina discovers a letter that tells the rest of Josephine's story and that her son that she thought died survived. Lina is able to find her descendants only to discover that they are milkier than what her clients are looking for, so they cancel the whole case and it doesn't go to court.

My main disappointment is the case never going to trial because I wanted to see how a lawyer would argue for reparations for slavery from the existing companies that benefited from it. I feel that is something that a lot of people don't think about, but I suppose Josephine's dismal ending inspiring Lina to do what she really wants in life is something. It is not "the something" that I was looking for when I started reading but I suppose if Lina went back to her life without changing anything, would be the opposite of growth. I understand that this is a debut novel, and this is not a bad book, but I feel there is absolutely room for improvement.

 

I rate this book 2,5 out of 5 stars.

Kat K out-

 

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