Monday, September 24, 2018

Washington Black by Eli Edugyan Book Review

I’m back! There were a whole variety of reasons why I stopped book blogging for a bit, but the easiest answer is I made it no fun for myself. When I started requesting more ARCs than I could read, started putting self administered deadlines, and put pressure on myself to produce reviews, I made something which started as a hobby into a job. So, I am not going to do that again. I am going back to my original format of writing reviews for books which I enjoyed when I can post them. No deadlines and back to being a hobby.

The other reason I wanted to restart by book blog was to share this book with as many people as I could, since it is now one of my top 10 favorite books of the year- Washington Black.

I will fully admit when I read the description for this book, I wasn’t sure about it. It was then shortlisted for the Man Booker and more importantly, was available on Litsy the day it was published from my local library, so I grabbed it. I am so glad I did too!

I have been describing the first portion of this book as an adult Huck Finn, if Huck was a British noble named Titch, Jim was a slave who was on the run for witnessing a white man’s suicide (he was going to be accused of murder) named George Washington Black or Wash, and the raft was a hot air balloon! As they adventure in the Sky Cutter, danger is lurking everywhere as a slave catcher is after the two of them. Danger also looms because slavery exists everywhere they travel, so Wash is treated as such everywhere he goes.

The great thing about the book is once one gets a feeling of knowing where the book is likely to head, Edugyan flips the story and takes it a completely different direction. As a wonderful storyteller, she does this a few times too! The other great thing is it all holds together wonderfully.

Let’s just say I loved this book so much that I returned my digital library copy and ran to the local bookstore to purchase a paper copy. It is really that much worth the read. While I have only read one other Man Booker nominee, between the two, this is the one to bet on. The others are on their way from England.

This one is a solid 5 out of 5.

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