Blonde Roots 2

So, I eventually did continue reading "Blonde Roots" by Bernardine Evaristo. My big issue with the book was that I lost my favored narrator and I didn't want to keep reading. It's really hard to read something that you feel repelled from, but I had enjoyed the first half of the book and I thought that reading the second half of it was definitely worth it. As it turns out, Doris comes back as a narrator and you see a lot of the remaining story through her eyes. In books like this it's interesting how some characters grow on you more than others. In this book the main character is a woman named Doris. She is a slave and when she tries to escape, and is caught, her owner punishes her by having her work in a cane field. She was used to working as a maid in the house and was not prepared at all for the harsh and dangerous work of the cane field. She stays with another cane field worker named Ye Meme. I really like the perspective of Doris because she manages to include a lot of her opinion but also a lot of what is really going on. Until I met Ye Meme, Doris was my favorite character. But then I began to like her less and less and began to like Ye Meme more and more.

Ye Meme is a strong, brave, "Big-boned, sloe-eyed Viking beauty". She is a very motherly character and always protects Doris when they get into trouble. Ye Meme has her own children which, I think, really shows off how caring and nurturing she is. Ye Meme was not afraid of the men who everyone else feared. She states how little boys like them can't tell a big woman like her what to do. She is "taller and broader" than most of the men there. She is kind and generous, no one forces her to take Doris on as a house guest but she does anyway, along with being a single, hardworking, mother of five. Ye Meme had lived at the cane fields for most of her life and had accepted it as life. She was strong and could handle the hard work, and she had to much to lose if she tried to escape. Ye Meme is altogether a person that you would wanton your side. She is a character that the more you hear about her, the more you like and respect her.

Doris, on the other hand, has gone down in my opinion. I understand that she suffered a lot after being caught, but now the only thing she ever talks about is escaping and other people that have escaped and how to escape and so on. It's hard to like a character who cares about no body but herself. I think Doris doesn't completely realize that she's putting people in danger, but she is and she really has to stop to consider that. She is now being completely driven by the idea that she can go home and be reunited with her family. The truth is that her family was captured shortly after her, but she doesn't know that. While Bwana is narrating you find out that her sister- Sharon- was captured by Bwana as well and he kept her as a personal slave on the island that Doris is now staying on. It's funny to hear Doris talk about Iffianchukwana (Sharon's slave name) with such hatred, not knowing that its her own sister, having never met her in person. I think this teaches a little lesson about Judging people when you don't really know them or what they've been through. Getting back on topic, It can be really hard to like someone who seems to be completely oblivious to those around them and not notice or even care about the pain they're causing.

To sum up, sometimes characters change, for better or worse and you might find yourself thinking differently about them. And sometimes new characters are introduced and you have a different view of them than you might have if they were introduced at the beginning of a book. When reading a book, you're opinion can change a lot since you began. My opinion of Doris has changed a lot since I started this book. Sometimes you find yourself really liking a certain character. Other times you may find yourself really disliking a certain character. But the truth is that you don't know whats going to change from the beginning to the end. So really all you can do is keep reading.

Blonde Roots

I just hit the halfway mark in this really interesting book called "Blonde Roots" by Bernardine Evaristo. It's a really thoughtful book and I really enjoyed reading it up to this point, the problem is that I don't want to keep reading now. The book is a reverse reality, historical fiction book where instead of having black people be enslaved by white people the "Whyte people were enslaved by Blak people" those are not typos, some of the language in the book is different and I believe that is supposed to represent the different language that the Ambossans used. Ambossans are the group that kept the white people as slaves. The book is really interesting to read because it poses a lot of what ifs that you usually wouldn't even consider. The first half of the book is in the perspective of a young, "whyte", slave, woman who is finally getting her chance to escape and be free. Doris is a character who you pity and feel bad for and overall get attached to. So when in the middle of the book the perspective switches to her evil slave owner Bwana, I didn't want to read on. I really did like this book so I'm going to try to figure out why I push away from this book so much.

First of all, I definitely got attached to Doris and I didn't want a new narrator. The thing about Doris was that even though she lived in a world very different from ours now she still was easy to relate to. Her real name is Doris but her slave name is Omorenomwara, she was captured as a child and taken to be a slave for one family until tragedy moved her to another one. For part of the book she talks about her childhood before slavery. She talks about what her family was like and about the sibling rivalry that she had with her three sisters. I have a little sibling so it was easy for me to listen to her stories of childhood competition. It also broke my heart when she talked about wondering where they were and being worried that they might have a life as bad as hers or that they might even be dead. As you learn more about Doris you like her more and pity her more and just want to hear more. So I reacted badly when her narration ends even though there was so much more that I wanted to hear about.

Then on top of losing the narrator that I loved, The replacement was one that I hated. Bwana is Doris's owner, he has a lot of slaves and this book favors the slaves. Slave owners are portrayed as almost monsters, not all Ambossans are bad - some help the slaves escape by means of the underground railroad. But Bwana is not good, he's not even a normal slave owner he publishes things that are pro-slavery and Doris refers to him as a "retired decent human being". So I started off the book already not liking him because of who he is and what he does. So introducing him into the book as narrator right after he recaptures Doris and forces her away from her freedom is not a great way to start off in my opinion.

So all in all, the reason I really don't want to keep reading is because its hard to hear things from people you hate. I don't want to hear his side of the story, I want him to fall off the edge of a cliff! But I have decided to try and keep reading to see if Bwana has anything to redeem himself with. I have liked the book so far and it is the same author writing it so it should have the same talent of writing. This is a really interesting book and I did really like the first half of it so I would definitely recommend it to others. In the meantime I will keep reading and hope something really terrible befalls my new narrator.