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LoraHatesSpam

Lora Hates Spam

My rants and reviews

Currently reading

Tales in Time: The Man Who Walked Home and Other Stories
Peter Crowther, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Lewis Padgett, Garry Douglas Kilworth, James Tiptree Jr., Charles de Lint, Spider Robinson, Jack Finney, L. Sprague de Camp, Brian W. Aldiss, H.G. Wells
Progress: 27/284pages
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Clive Barker
Progress: 98/507pages

Mustard Seed

Mustard Seed - Laila Ibrahim

by Laila Ibrahim

 

This is a sequel to Yellow Crocus. The fact that I read it right away after the first book says something about how captivated I was by the story. Yellow Crocus took place before the American Civil War. This one takes place just after. People who were children or babies in the first book have grown up into young adults. Slaves have been freed, at least in law.

 

Between the two books, I've learned two things about this period of history that I didn't know before. Originally, slaves were to work a set amount of time and then 'earn' their freedom. That law was changed so the land owners could make better profits. Sounds like things are very much the same in government then as now!

 

The other thing is that the thirteenth amendment didn't make a lot of difference to many 'former' slaves lives. I knew that many had nowhere to go and continued to work for their former masters. I knew that attitudes don't change overnight. What I learned from this book was that former slaves could be charged with vagrancy if they couldn't prove they were employed and leased out to work on the plantations, as if nothing had changed.

 

There's no candy coating in either of the books. The horrors of having children taken away and being treated like abused animals is brought home in the stories of people's lives. The 'N' word is used where historically accurate. But the main characters include white people too, some who are a product of their entitled environment and then there's Lisbeth, who rejects that attitude, having been effectively brought up by her black nurse and recognising the wrongs in how slaves were treated.

 

Both of these books had me putting aside all my other reads to see what happened. The writing wasn't quite as good in this one as the first one, but it still held my interest more than most books. Very highly recommended.