jessjess125's reviews
1186 reviews

 This book did get a three stars from me! I enjoyed the premise of the book but I have some issues with the facts of the book, the character development, and the flow of the writing. There are a lot of characters in this book but it takes about half of the book just to get straight who is who, how they are related to everyone else, and which part of the story they belong in. Trying to keep the plot and characters straight took away from the book experience as a whole for me. Plus, no one was exceptionally likable, it didn't make it easy to finish the title at all when I wasn't rooting for anyone. As for the plot itself, it shows a lot of promise. Charleston during the Civil Rights era is not really a hugely talked about subject, as people tend to focus more on Birmingham, Jackson, and other hotspots from the time period. That being said, there were moments of this book that seemed like they were based on fact that were not true. It can be misleading to the reader unless you are willing to do a lot of your own research on the KKK and bus riots in the city in the 1950s. I was willing to sit down and do that search but the majority of readers won't. I know this title is billed as historical fiction but there are several parts of the book that are factual so it can be pretty confusing to mix factual and non-factual, especially for me, a Charleston native. Regarding the flow of writing, it is pretty choppy and there were several moments where I had to reread a sentence several times to figure out what was going on. Grammatically, it does seem to be correct but sentence structure is a little rough. I did think it was interesting that this book is told from the perspectives of people of color but it was written by a white woman who is not from the area. I personally didn't love that, but I am also a big advocate of local authors writing about local experiences. Overall, I personally would not read this title again but with some strong editing, it could be alright for a certain audience.