I imagine I will be under the spell of the mysterious unfolding of this book for a while. While at times, I felt the story lingered in places a little to long. With so many grand character developments it made it difficult to stay engaged with the big picture. With that said, the many characters, became known to me, deeply and Intimately. They revealed a piece of their soul.
Ultimately, I was enchanted by the flowing and poetic nature of Robert Jones Jr’s craft. There were lines I had to read over and over as they elicited such a strong emotional response. I read some of these beautiful some haunting lines out loud to whatever family member was closest at the time...” listen to this” I would say. These lines stood on there own without context or background.
While the story sometimes took odd turns and jumps, I never lost the rhythm of the emotional journey. It is truly an exquisite expression of the deep love between two young men who found joy in life in the midst of so much suffering and pain, the trauma of women who took control of what they could with there own undiscoverable acts of resistance, to the pain of not having autonomy over ones own body.
The parallel story of the ancestors love and trauma, is woven through from beginning to end, though it was not apparent to me at first, this is a critical part of the story, of all our stories, the tying together of past, present and future.
While this was at times a challenging read, and while I was in the midst of it I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, i feel confident now that it will be remembered as a literary masterpiece. The reader cannot truly know this book until the final pages have been read. The story continues to reveal itself, long after the book has been closed.

Samuel and Isaiah, young, gay lovers who are slaves on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. Their love story is so beautiful and sensual, and a stark contrast to the cruelties of life on Empty, what the slaves call the plantation. This was a hard read, and ultimately the love story wasn’t enough to carry me through the violence. Some of the writing is confusing and reminded me a lot of Song of Solomon.

I have read a few slave fictions and enjoyed them all, but this one was unique and absolutely brilliant. To me, the most resounding themes were the beauty of queer love, the strength of a people brought low, and the weilding of Christianity like a weapon against those people. But I am approaching this story as a queer white female in the middle of deconstructing/leaving Christianity who's especially interested in the ways it has been and still is used as a means to control people and establish and uphold white supremacy.

Jones weaves together the accounts of several people on a plantation in Mississippi. While the focus remains on Isaiah and Samuel, you get the sense that Jones has created a tapestry of each characters' interlacing stories and that you will see it all come together for the climax. I found it quite compelling how the narrator rotates between several different characters across history and sea; it made for a more robust novel, I think. And the way each chapter is named after a character or a book in the bible--I found that clever.

What made this story stand out against other similar novels was bringing the reader back to the time of King Akusa, to when the slave trade was beginning in Africa. To experience her point of view, to have an author paint with words the pride, joy, strength, dignity, disbelief, then horror and grief of a tribe that would become first generation slaves in America--it all was utterly breathtaking and heartbreaking. As a voracious reader, I've visited many worlds and people through literature, but this was the first time I had an author take me to these people, and I can't stop thinking about them.

Jones' prose reads like poetry or spoken word, and there is much more I could say about the characters he brings to life. His style proves to be a very effective tool to vividly portray the raw ugliness of the system: both the resiliance and despair of the enslaved people and the shameful complicity of white folk--sometimes well-intentioned, always religious.

This is a story that I know will haunt me--and that I want to haunt me--for some time to come.

I really wanted to love this book, but it was difficult to read. I just wanted the author to tell the story......

This was a difficult read on many levels, not the least of which is the setting and language. A lot of beautiful writing and imagery. I'm unsure if I understood all the metaphorical language and the use of Bible headings as chapter titles.

DNF @ page 140. This writing style is just not for me at all. I am not enjoying myself so it’s time to move on. I hate not finishing a book!