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Book Review of The Book of Night Women

The Book of Night Women
perryfran avatar reviewed on + 1223 more book reviews


This was a very powerful novel about a slave revolt that takes place on a Jamaican sugar plantation in the late 1700s. It is told in Jamaican patois from the point of view of a group of slave women who instigate the revolt. Although at first I found the dialect of the narrative sometimes hard to follow, as the novel progressed I can see why it was written this way. It really gave a voice to the women and how slavery affected them all. It was very graphic in its descriptions of the abuse heaped onto the slaves...more so than any other novel I have ever read. It is another example of how men can heap cruelty upon others only because of race. The novel runs the gamut of emotions and shows the relationships among the slaves themselves and between slave and master. The characterizations of the women in the novel were brilliant and gave insight into the minds of how they were able to cope with slavery and cruelty.

This is really a great and powerful novel that I would highly recommend.