Sunday, March 22, 2009

Book 31: Song Yet Sung

Song Yet Sung by James McBride

I saw this book at the PX a few times before I finally decided to get it, and the main reason I decided in its favor is because one of the author's other novels, Miracle at St. Anna, had been made into a movie. I know, great reasoning.

I just couldn't get into this. It took me almost two weeks, and various other novels as interruptions to finish it. And I don't really know why. It wasn't badly written, the story per se wasn't bad - runaway slave with a slave catcher in pursuit, as well as slave kidnappers and various other characters. Honestly, I think some of the characters were just too over the top for me so most of them never seemed real enough to get invested in. There were also touches of magic realism and Liz, the runaway slave, has the ability to dream the future but it just didn't work for me. There'd be parts that I got interested in but then the narrative would shift to a different character, and I would lose interest.

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