Lovecraft Country

This was exceptional! Ruff does a fantastic job of crafting relatable, three-dimensional characters, which is the heart of the book. He weaves the sadly mundane horrors and dread of an African-American family during Jim Crow with cosmic horror and weird tales, and it is completely mesmerizing.

Each chapter is basically a short story, with one of the central cast of characters taking POV for that section. Early on the stories track closely with Lovecraft's own fiction, while later chapters pay homage to weird fiction authors from Robert Louis Stevenson to Richard Matheson. And all the while the tension is ratcheted up by the burdens and limitations the characters face due to systemic racism. It's not preachy or forced, just viscerally emotional.

I must say that I also enjoyed the fact that this is both paean and thumb in the eye to H.P. Lovecraft, whose work is forever tainted by his racism. I like to think that were he still alive, Howard would have changed his blinkered assumptions about race and ethnicity, but I'm also content to know that modern authors are taking the good and speaking truth to the bad in his legacy.

Executive Summary: I'm not really a big fan of horror, but I enjoyed this book. It's the type of horror I do tend to enjoy. The blend of historic fiction and the supernatural really worked for me.

Full Review
A lot of the early comments I saw about this book said how the characters in this book and the observations on life under Jim Crow were the best part, but the supernatural elements were a detriment to the book.

While I can agree to the first point, I disagree about the second. It just goes to show not every book works for everyone in the same ways. This book reminds me a bit of Get Out, in that the real horror doesn't come from the supernatural elements, but the awful way that people treat each other.

I thought all the characters were fantastic. I'm hard pressed to decide who I liked the best. The female characters were the most enjoyable. I think I liked Hippolyta the best. I enjoyed her parts of the story a lot.

However I thought the two sisters Letitia and Ruby also had great parts. And on the male side I liked Hippolyta's husband George and their son Horace a lot as well.

But I also really liked the world building. I've always been a fan of the secret history trope. Secret societies with magical power and influence over everything is not exactly new, but it takes on an even more sinister aspect in this book.

I should mention the story kind of jumps all over the place at times. There are a lot of sub plots going on, but they all tie-back in to each other by the end, and I actually liked the format of this.

Overall, I thought this was a really good book and I'm glad I picked it up. I liked it a lot better than I expected, especially after seeing so many neutral to negative reactions to the book from most of the early reactions I saw to our book club read for this.

I suspect this book won't be for everyone, but if you liked Get Out, this seems like a story in a similar vein. I'm looking forward to checking out the TV adaptation, especially since Jordan Peele is attached to the project.

Books set in this time period are always hard to read as a Black person, there is of course tons of racism throughout the book. But it is still a worthwhile read, the characters are all interesting even if not all of them are deep to the same level a few of their POVs really make you think. The story was fun and it all came together in the end making even some of the less enjoyable sections worth it. All in all a very enjoyable experience. Closer to a 4.5