Play Book Tag discussion

The Deep by Rivers Solomon - 4.5* - My Review

“The Remembrance took more than it gave. It required she remember and relive the wajinru’s entire history all at once. Not just that, she had to put order and meaning to the events, so that the others could understand. She had to help them open their minds so they could relive the past too. It was a painful process.”

Yetu is a historian. She is a part of the wajinru, a race of merfolk who live in the deep. They are descended from pregnant women thrown overboard during the slave trade. As historian, Yetu collects painful memories of her people’s past, which she harbors inside until the annual ceremony called the Remembrance. Historians are charged with stifling their own wants and needs in order to fulfill this important role in the community.

This book is a mix of fantasy, literary fiction, and folklore. Yetu is a vessel for storing memories, and she represents both the importance of memory (and by inference, history) as well as the manner in which these become diluted over time. Yetu comes into contact with the “two-legs,” as they call the human surface dwellers, and she realizes that her people’s environment is threatened by their actions.

This story is creatively and beautifully written. Solomon’s prose is elegant and lyrical. Though it is short (166 pages), it works on multiple levels – oral history, folk tale, legacy of slavery, environmental damage, and generational trauma. I particularly enjoyed the exploration of the dichotomy of memory. Do not miss the Afterword, which describes the mixture of original sources that resulted in this poetic and powerful novel.

4.5

PBT Steeplechase: Tagged "sea" x13:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/shelve...

BWF January Extra "S" - fits letter, not tag

I thoroughly enjoyed this one too Joy, glad you liked it,

Thanks JoAnne!