Bell Hammers

28/02/2023:

This is probably gonna be a book that I don't think I'll ever be able to re-read. At least not without erasing my memories of having read it for the first time and also because I am not good at re reading. And it was a complete impulse read.

That aside, this book was honestly really good. It isn't perfect but it is good and solid. Following Remmy as he tried to build Camelot and his Merry Men, I even forgot what Camelot was and Merry Men from initially. It's probably the most real, fun and emotional depiction of a historical setting I have ever read till date personally. 

As for the writing, gotta say, this book doesn't hold back on its toilet humor at all. Whatsoever. (So do beware if you get grossed out easily). What it does best though, is show people in a different time and setting as their own thing and not mere clippings from an old newspaper found in the archives of a library. Remmy very much a person living in mid 1900s but he has his own mind and struggles. There's humor to him and there's also deep emotions. I was laughing and crying all while lamenting that the book is going to end at some point. And that's the thing you want from a story. Not just recreation if its drawn from a time past, of confirmation of biases and stereotypes built from uninformed rumors, but letting the characters speak for themselves. That's what happened here.

Objectively speaking the end felt a little lackluster. But this book won't leave my mind any time soon.

Final Rating: 4/5