The Salt Roads

Disclaimer: I received a eARC of this through netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

Magic realism is one of my favorite writing genres. I spent a lot of time in college reading Angela Carter's works. Nalo Hopkinson's book expands on the tradition and creates a vivid world where a goddess hops into various women to understand the human conditions of love, oppression, and beating the odds. She weaves the stories of three independent woman from three different timelines in such a way that modern audiences can learn to appreciate what they have gone through.

I loved this storyline. It took me awhile to figure out what tied these three stories together. It was when I discovered the use of the “goddess” voice and went back to the beginning that I really understood what was going on. I found that my favorite tale was in Mer, and in Mari (Mary) and their journeys through enslavement and enlightenment.

This book can be a bit hard to grasp at first. But I recommend you stick with it. Hopkinson will draw you in and you'll be wanting to read parts out loud, the voice and lyrical prose is amazing

Thank you for allowing us into a brilliant glimpse of the human soul, and the oppression that the blacks went through and the stories of the woman who dealt with it.

Executive Summary: This is a book I would have never read if not for Sword & Laser, and while I didn't love it, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. My main criticism is that it had far too little fantasy for my liking.

Full Review
I struggled with the start of this book. I didn't know what was going on, and it didn't feel like a fantasy story at all. I never fully came to enjoy Jeanne as a character, so that probably didn't help things.

A friend of mine who finished it before me, told me he enjoyed it more once he didn't read it expecting a fantasy book, and I have to say that helped me a lot. It's often hard to categorize books, but I'd probably be more inclined to call this book historical fiction than fantasy. There are fantastical elements, but they aren't always there.

To me, most of the fantasy elements were simply there to serve as a framing device to connect three different stories. Jeanne in France, Mer in Haiti and Meritet in Egypt. Of the three, I enjoyed Meritet the best. It's a shame she doesn't enter the book until much later, I might have been hooked a bit sooner.

I will say that despite never warming up to Jeanne, I did warm up to her story somewhat. Mer's story was probably the hardest to read, but they were all tough. This book can be graphic quite frequently. Both in terms of sexual content, and with regards to the awful things endured by slaves.

After reading only a chapter here or there at some point I found myself reading 100 pages at a time, and I finished the second half of the book far quicker than I did the first half.

I like historical fiction, so I think I liked this as a result. Anyone looking for a fantasy driven book may be left wanting. There is the fantastical element of the goddess Ezili tying the stories together, but that's about it.

Overall, a decent book, but I wasn't blown away. I may pick up something else by Ms. Hopkinson in the future, as I found her to be a talented writer.