River Sing Me Home
Ratings13
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings13
Average rating3.7
Powerful, soaring and redemptive, RIVER SING ME HOME tells of a mother's journey to find her children.'A strong and beautiful novel that stares into the face of brutality and the heart of love' JEANETTE WINTERSON'Eleanor Shearer is a remarkable writer and brings this story of a mother's courage to the page with compassion, tenderness and pitch-perfect prose' NATASHA LESTER'The beautifully written depiction of a mother longing for her children makes this transcendent' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)'A moving testament to a mother's love' BOOKLIST----------------------------We whisper the names of the ones we love like the words of a song. That was the taste of freedom to us, those names on our lips.Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. These are the names of her children. The five who survived, only to be sold to other plantations. The faces Rachel cannot forget. It's 1834, and the law says her people are now free. But for Rachel freedom means finding her children, even if the truth is more than she can bear. With fear snapping at her heels, Rachel keeps moving. From sunrise to sunset, through the cane fields of Barbados to the forests of British Guiana and on to Trinidad, to the dangerous river and the open sea. Only once she knows their stories can she rest. Only then can she finally find home.'Eleanor Shearer bursts onto the literary scene with...an extraordinary odyssey of pain, love, and homecoming... A haunting and powerful debut' Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author'A searing debut full of love, loss, and the shadows of the past... Heartbreaking, hopeful, and unforgettable. Both a powerful ode to the endless depths of a mother's love and an important meditation on what freedom really means, this is the kind of book that will stay with readers for years to come' Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author'An extraordinary and gripping debut. Rachel's love for her children resonates through each page as she fights for her freedom and theirs. A must-read!' Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author'A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined' Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling co-author'Magnificent and epic' Frank Cottrell-Boyce''A powerful story, beautifully told. Shearer skilfully depicts the cruelty of the British slave trade, contrasted with one mother's indomitable love for her children, and her burning will to live. An empathic, elegantly rendered and deeply humane novel' Jessica Moor
Reviews with the most likes.
This was a good read and it was interesting reading about the lives of slaves and the difficulties they faced.
The reason it is 4* and not 5* is because I, for some reason, found it difficult to connect with the story/characters. I'm usually a pretty empathetic reader, but I found something lacking whilst reading this.
The writing was decent, but like I said, I just found something lacking.
Thank you to PH and Eleanor Shearer for the chance to read this book.
My heart is in pieces, but I adored [b:River Sing Me Home 61111298 River Sing Me Home Eleanor Shearer https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1675174045l/61111298.SY75.jpg 95614616] so much. It's a story of survival, family, discerning the meaning of freedom, and most of all, a mother's love and hope for her children.When the so-called end of slavery comes, Rachel is quick to learn that the word has only changed to ‘apprentice'. Seeing that nothing will change for her and unable to stomach the thought of another six years of confinement and brutal labor, she takes off in search of the children that were taken away from her and sold. This is no easy feat, not even sure if any of the five have survived. She doesn't let her think about this possibility too much. She is determined to reunite with them at any cost.I loved the writing, the characters, the descriptions, and the history that went into this book. I learned a lot not having studied much about the Caribbean islands at all. It was quite slow at several moments, however, it worked well for me in this context. We get to know Rachel intimately as well as the memories of her children. I particularly loved Mary Grace and her story. While the heart of this book is about Rachel's natural-born children, this is also a story about found family. This is definitely one to take your time with and let it all sink in.
3.5 ⭐
This book was beautiful and heartbreaking. My only complaint was that I could not connect with the characters like I would have wanted.
This book was not at all what I expected. Each character was flat and lacked personality. It lacked emotion and at times, while things were like that back then, it felt like certain things happened only so the author didn't have to write the reunion and quickly get to the end of the book. For the subject matter I felt no emotions being genuinely conveyed. It just felt like the author tried to make you feel something but it was unsuccessful. The ending was flat and was very much a WTF moment. If the story had really pulled off the emotion I expected the ending would have been an amazing one.
