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weejman33's review
5.0
Last few chapters hit like a truck. Going to aim to read longer novels after finishing this.
jess_mango's review
4.0
Based on a true story, Jubilee tells the story of the author's great-grandmother's life from her birth as a slave, through the Civil War, to trying to make her own life after emancipation. Jubilee is well-told and I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed [b:Gone with the Wind|18405|Gone With The Wind|Margaret Mitchell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166913011s/18405.jpg|3358283] or Cane River.
miss_merna's review against another edition
4.0
By now, I've read plenty of books set in antebellum south, and although this novel does not score as high as kindred or incidents in the life of a slave girl, it's still fairly good. It's the only one that I've read which captures the antebellum era, civil war, and the reconstruction period.
My favourite aspect of the novel was the portrayal of the reconstruction era. The reconstruction period was truly a period of lost hopes and dreams. It seemed as if United States may have been able to achieve equality for the newly freed slaves, especially with the radical republicans in power, but hatred and intolerance was too powerful and too much of a barrier. I always found the reconstruction period to be quite a tragic period in American history because civil rights was almost close to being obtained 90 years earlier. Although this book ends up in a happy note, it war far from so for many who lived during those times. It must have felt overwhelming to be given your rights (vote, hold office, fair trail), and then for it to be taken away once more, and then be plunged back into another period of torment and terror, but KKK and lynching this time around instead of slavery.
Although I like how the story was laid out and told, I felt quite detached from the main character. The story follows the Character of Vyry, who was born to a slave mistress and a white planter. She was too amiable and pleasant of a character for me to dislike, however, I still found her character to be sort of plain. She never fully seemed to open up. In my opinion, the character came off as reserved. However, the story does not always focus on Vyry. It sometimes switches perspectives between the overseer, or her mistress or some other character.
The other characters were engaging, however, the author never manages to capture the character's personality in a way that makes them stand out. For instance, Vyry's father is kind, but he comes off as uncaring and uninterested in his daughter, and we are never given the full scope of why this is so. I think it's just assumed that since he's a planter, he would never show much care for his illegitimate daughter, but you would think since he's much kinder than his wife or other planters that it would also be reflected in the way he treats his daughter. Yet he he treats her almost as if she's insignificant and sees her merely as a useful slave. He's not harsh, he just doesn't notice or pay attention to her.
Nonetheless, she does manages to capture the historical aspect, which I greatly enjoyed.
My favourite aspect of the novel was the portrayal of the reconstruction era. The reconstruction period was truly a period of lost hopes and dreams. It seemed as if United States may have been able to achieve equality for the newly freed slaves, especially with the radical republicans in power, but hatred and intolerance was too powerful and too much of a barrier. I always found the reconstruction period to be quite a tragic period in American history because civil rights was almost close to being obtained 90 years earlier. Although this book ends up in a happy note, it war far from so for many who lived during those times. It must have felt overwhelming to be given your rights (vote, hold office, fair trail), and then for it to be taken away once more, and then be plunged back into another period of torment and terror, but KKK and lynching this time around instead of slavery.
Although I like how the story was laid out and told, I felt quite detached from the main character. The story follows the Character of Vyry, who was born to a slave mistress and a white planter. She was too amiable and pleasant of a character for me to dislike, however, I still found her character to be sort of plain. She never fully seemed to open up. In my opinion, the character came off as reserved. However, the story does not always focus on Vyry. It sometimes switches perspectives between the overseer, or her mistress or some other character.
The other characters were engaging, however, the author never manages to capture the character's personality in a way that makes them stand out. For instance, Vyry's father is kind, but he comes off as uncaring and uninterested in his daughter, and we are never given the full scope of why this is so. I think it's just assumed that since he's a planter, he would never show much care for his illegitimate daughter, but you would think since he's much kinder than his wife or other planters that it would also be reflected in the way he treats his daughter. Yet he he treats her almost as if she's insignificant and sees her merely as a useful slave. He's not harsh, he just doesn't notice or pay attention to her.
Nonetheless, she does manages to capture the historical aspect, which I greatly enjoyed.
charamel's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
aeseoga's review against another edition
5.0
The audiobook is great AND horrible. The narrator did an amazing job bringing the story to life. There were times when I wished I'd gotten the book instead because the depictions were so real. I definitely recommend if you can stomach being transported back to the Antebellum South.
ccmhats's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
meaflowr's review
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Racism, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Racial slurs, Colonisation, and Slavery
_nursejayy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
I enjoyed most of the character roles. The writing was spectacular.
I will say I do wish Randall and Vyry could have been together. I know Vyry waited as long as she could but I would have loved to see what became of them together as a couple.
I’m also glad Jim was able to go off to school. I wonder how Innis was able to bring the new crop in without him but I’m glad Jim got away.
Vyry was such a strong person and endured a lot. I’m thankful she was able to have some type of happy ending. And as it stands, the Master and his family seemed to get what they had coming as well.
ralowe's review
5.0
i must have suppressed the knowledge that this was an oral history, since i became unsure by any type of guiding symbolist structure to the proceedings, and it made me very nervous. i wondered what the moral or message was intended to be, but of course fact, and maybe even fictive fact, offer no closure. one of my historic triggers is the time of reconstruction, this reading confirms it, the time where the horrors of the present-day took shape, indentured servitude perpetuated through debt bondage and cropping for shares, all that bureaucratic ugliness that reveals the amount of irrationality required for securing the institutions of the rational. the beauty of walker's writing made itself clearer to me near the end with the vast passages of dialogue, the sheer beauty of black english put to the project of 'working through' the many horrors of american life. at one point there is an intramural confrontation between the camps of what would be later refined as pacifist liberation theology in one corner and across from it the counter-colonial ancestral longing for black freedom that would perhaps inspire afropessimism. i don't know where the the author's loyalties lie, and it is quietly remarkable that is a testament to the work that for some reason it doesn't seem to matter.