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A review by kpbq81
A Tangled Mercy by Joy Jordan-Lake
2.0
I wanted to like this book. It's not without merit; I learned a lot about historical events and people that I had never heard of and will further research. And I liked the writing style, most of the time. Her descriptions were lovely and evocative.
It is too much of a fantasy about white savior syndrome to be worth a mention as a book about racism. Rose who is white overrides the explicit wishes of three generations of a black family, simply because she does what she wants. Emily is a benevolent slave owner, and I found her story along with Dinah and Tom, the most compelling. Kate is a white woman who somehow manages to say all the right things about the experience of black people, even though she seemingly has had no interactions with any in her life.
Drawing the Dylann Roof massacre into the story was too much for me. I understand why other people liked this story, but I don't think heavy issues of racism can genuinely be written about by white people and contain true introspection. This feels like whitewashing a serious subject in order to portray a happy ending.
It is too much of a fantasy about white savior syndrome to be worth a mention as a book about racism. Rose who is white overrides the explicit wishes of three generations of a black family, simply because she does what she wants. Emily is a benevolent slave owner, and I found her story along with Dinah and Tom, the most compelling. Kate is a white woman who somehow manages to say all the right things about the experience of black people, even though she seemingly has had no interactions with any in her life.
Drawing the Dylann Roof massacre into the story was too much for me. I understand why other people liked this story, but I don't think heavy issues of racism can genuinely be written about by white people and contain true introspection. This feels like whitewashing a serious subject in order to portray a happy ending.