4.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads.

This was a tough and important story but not one without hope. An enslaved woman is brought up to believe she will receive her freedom upon turning 18. Instead her master's hateful wife sells her to a slave jail. Based on a true story, Johnson inflated snippets of information floating around in history into a phenomenal story of survival and perseverance.

This book explores difficult subject matter with complexity and nuance while at the same time addressing the atrocities of slavery head on.

It left me feeling raw, vulnerable, angry, and utterly awed that people survived the hardships they were forced to endure.