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.