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Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated A Kind of Freedom: A Novel in Books

Nov 6, 2017 (Updated Nov 6, 2017)

A book rooted in hope and endurance

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's beautiful debut novel explores four generations of a family, from the time of segregation to mass incarceration.

In A Kind of Freedom, Sexton pursues a family’s history in a downward spiral, with three alternating plot lines that echo one another along the way. It begins with the budding love of Evelyn, brought up in New Orleans and the daughter of a Creole mother and black doctor father. She is courted by Renard, a poor man who works menial jobs to get by but aspires to study medicine. Their courtship reveals the strictures of a class- and colour-driven society that suffocates ambition and distorts desire.

The second generation is about Jackie, a single mother in 1980s New Orleans who is in love with her child’s father but afraid he will succumb to his crack addiction.

Eventually, we get to know Jackie’s son, T.C., in 2010, a young man at a turning point in his life. Through T.C.'s eyes, Sexton portrays a post-Katrina New Orleans where the smell of mold still lingers and opportunities for fast cash in the streets abound, as do the chances of getting shot or arrested.

It's an unflinching portrayal, slightly detached and not overbearing in its rhetoric. It shows where links have been bruised and sometimes broken, but dwells on the endurance and not the damage. A moving read.

Kudos

HLD (99 KP) rated The Alienist - Season 1 in TV

Aug 22, 2018 (Updated Aug 22, 2018)

Superb scenery (2 more)

I imagine a close representation of the time period

Character development is slight in some of the main cast, but it is there

Dakota Fanning never smiles. Not once (1 more)

For all the terrible things that happen, I don't feel, as a viewer, the terrible people got what they deserved

Engaging and thrilling

Much like 'Hannibal', or 'Mindhunter', this show attempts to put our protagonist in the mind of the monster he is hunting. Although it takes him a while to realise that is indeed what he is doing.

This is in interesting idea for a show. Before Psychology was a respected field of medicine, you have alienists. Essentially doing the same job, but categorised differently.

Every character appears to have demons of their own. By the end of the season, they confront those demons simply by talking about them aloud to another person.

Also, was paedophilia as accepted 118 years ago as this show portrays? Is it merely an exaggeration of some historical accounts? Who knows, but it definitely created an unhealthy dynamic within society.
Everyone cares so much about the murders of these young men, but nobody cares about the children living on the streets. Or the people having sex with them.

The filming of the show does out-perform some of the acting, but the scenery added to the storylines that occur are sure to keep you entertained until episode ten.

Kudos

Lindsay (1774 KP) rated The Shape-Shifter's Wife in Books

Jan 4, 2019

Every wonder if you could travel back in time? But it feels so real that do you not know. A young woman some how travel back to the California gold rush Era. Once she does, she does not know why or the reason. She seem to take her time to adjust to the time period.

She meets a young man. She finds out that she need help a family get out of the family curse. To do this they need her. She learns about Indians culture and traditions. In the process she starts to fall in love with this young man.

She deals with this while her sister is still away. When she returns to her era, she does not know if she really was with a man named Reynard. She meets an Indian medicine man and go on a trip with her soul and life.

Will she end up going back to her husband? How did she travel back to her world and still be pregnant with a child? What Shape-Shifter animal does she become? What ever happens to Joseph? Will she fulfill the reason of the family curse?

This is a great book for those that enjoy history. If you are into historical fiction or California gold rush this is the book for you. Are you into time travel. This one is filled with it. The author does a beautifully good job with telling the story though Angelica's and her sister.