A Powerful Exploration of Self: The Deep, by Rivers Solomon and clipping.
This has been a difficult review for me to write. When I received this ARC from BookishFirst in exchange for a fair review, life was stable and fun. I enjoyed immediately digging in to this tale of legacies and the burden of history beneath which the youth of the day find themselves bowed.
But then my grandfather died. And suddenly this book about the expectations the younger generations place upon themselves to do right by those that came before them hit me in a place that was much more visceral and real than the more detached conceptual understanding I had mere days earlier. It was difficult to revisit. But I knew I must because this is a story worth reviewing and sharing with the world.
This book isn't perfect, and in fact has a very "written by committee" feel to it when you first dig in. Some ideas seem half-finished, plot details that seem promising appear for an instant and scurry away just as fast, like the silvery fins of a small fish weaving in and out of view in the murky depths of the ocean.
However, the deeper you dive, the clearer it becomes that such a feeling seems to be on purpose, as the main character in the book, Yetu, is herself constantly awash with half-seen glimpses and shadows of history roiling beneath the parts of her mind that make her who she is. Rivers Solomon and clipping. have done a masterful job building into the text a mechanical device to being us into the mind of Yetu, to experience her troubles and fears and anxieties from a first person perspective.
And some of those fears and anxieties became all too relatable for me as of a few days ago. I don't want to spoil too much of this truly wonderful story, and I won't bore you with unrelated details of my personal life.
But I do want to end this saying this book is exactly what I needed to read. The ideas of how we perceive not just ourselves, but how we perceive our peers and elders, and our worries over the expectations people place upon us, and how to keep the essence of who we are true and stable, all of this and more was not just running through my mind, but also through the pages of this book.
It comes out soon, November 5th. I highly recommend clearing out some shelf space to add it to your own personal libraries then, you won't regret it.
But then my grandfather died. And suddenly this book about the expectations the younger generations place upon themselves to do right by those that came before them hit me in a place that was much more visceral and real than the more detached conceptual understanding I had mere days earlier. It was difficult to revisit. But I knew I must because this is a story worth reviewing and sharing with the world.
This book isn't perfect, and in fact has a very "written by committee" feel to it when you first dig in. Some ideas seem half-finished, plot details that seem promising appear for an instant and scurry away just as fast, like the silvery fins of a small fish weaving in and out of view in the murky depths of the ocean.
However, the deeper you dive, the clearer it becomes that such a feeling seems to be on purpose, as the main character in the book, Yetu, is herself constantly awash with half-seen glimpses and shadows of history roiling beneath the parts of her mind that make her who she is. Rivers Solomon and clipping. have done a masterful job building into the text a mechanical device to being us into the mind of Yetu, to experience her troubles and fears and anxieties from a first person perspective.
And some of those fears and anxieties became all too relatable for me as of a few days ago. I don't want to spoil too much of this truly wonderful story, and I won't bore you with unrelated details of my personal life.
But I do want to end this saying this book is exactly what I needed to read. The ideas of how we perceive not just ourselves, but how we perceive our peers and elders, and our worries over the expectations people place upon us, and how to keep the essence of who we are true and stable, all of this and more was not just running through my mind, but also through the pages of this book.
It comes out soon, November 5th. I highly recommend clearing out some shelf space to add it to your own personal libraries then, you won't regret it.