Red at the Bone in Bound Together

Sep 29, 2019 Chrissie rated it did not like it

Shelves: race, life-stages, returned, audible-us, lgtb, 2019-read, relationships, nyc, disliked

My friends love this book. I hate it. It is not pleasant to write a review in such a situation, but it Is wrong to say you hate a book and then give no explanation.

This book revels in suffering. It is a common phenomenon to observe people aggravating a wound to increase their pain. This may be a way of venting one’s spleen on life’s injustices. We can in this way feel sorry for ourselves! Some people are drawn to stare at an accident. I am not. Life throws difficulties at many , no, in f ...more

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Sep 29, 2019 Dem added it

Shelves: not-for-me

Not going to rate this book as I DNF it but it’s just not for me and I just don't want to give it any

more of my time.

I did however listen to 20% of this on audible and the narration was well done and

with audible you may return the book for any reason and get a refund on your credit which really is

very fair and one of the reasons I love Audio. ...more

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May 16, 2020 ☮Karen rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbtq, audio, overdrive, hear-hear-on-bt, read-in-2020

The synopsis lets you know many of the topics covered in this rather sad but hopeful book. Class differences, teenage pregnancy and parenthood, sexual identity, and life-altering decisions all intermingle. How Jacqueline Woodson presents these vignettes is original, but whether they will be memorable depends on how you appreciate Woodson's style.

Just like when I read Woodson's Another Brooklyn, I will be swimming against the tide with my feelings about this book. I do not disagree that Woodson t The synopsis lets you know many of the topics covered in this rather sad but hopeful book. Class differences, teenage pregnancy and parenthood, sexual identity, and life-altering decisions all intermingle. How Jacqueline Woodson presents these vignettes is original, but whether they will be memorable depends on how you appreciate Woodson's style.

Just like when I read Woodson's Another Brooklyn, I will be swimming against the tide with my feelings about this book. I do not disagree that Woodson tells great stories, important stories with valuable messages. Where I diverge is in the telling. Her writing and what I feel are experiments in storytelling are hard to follow, and too often that results in my mind wandering. This audio is less than 4 hours long but I think I grasped only about half of it on the first go, and so I listened to it again. The audio narrators were, in my opinion, the best thing about the book, then the story followed. The non-linear arrangement of the chapters is not something I enjoy, especially in an audiobook. Many (most) readers find the writing to be poetic and beautiful; to me it is kind of jumbled and confusing but that is my unpopular opinion.

I think I will remember the grandparents' histories most of all, and all the characters were well defined with rich personalities. As the mother/daughter relationship was central, they are the two main protagonists, Iris and Melody, with the mom Iris getting most of the attention. I really did not care for Iris or her choices, but I think the ending gives hope for better decisions in the future.

The author plus four others lend their voices to the three generations of characters and certainly added to the enjoyment, not to mention to figuring out whose story we were on -- since the chapter headings gave no clue. Shayna Small as Iris portrays her many layers and stubbornness. The lovely voices of Iris' parents Po'Boy and Sabe conveyed their ages and wisdom. Melody read by Bahni Turpin let me imagine the 16 year old living through an important time in her life. And I thought the author did a fine job filling in the third-person narrative.

...more

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Jan 03, 2020 Irene rated it really liked it

Woodson is a poet at heart. The prose here is lyrical. But, I struggled with the narrative. That is not surprising since I usually struggle with stories that are told from alternating perspectives and that jump around in time. But, I also struggled to know and understand the characters. The choices that two 15 year olds make when faced with an unexpected pregnancy are nested in the stories of their parents’ choices in the face of pervasive racism and this daughter, now a teenager, in the face of ...more

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Jan 19, 2020 Meera rated it really liked it

Shelves: 5000-books, historical-fiction, bookmarks-magazine, poc-author, bwc2020, best-books-lists

4.5
This was such a good and heart-breaking book. I loved the language of it and once I got used to the structure, I liked that too. I'm leaving this as a 4 but it might turn into 5 as I think more about it later. I thought it should have been longer but maybe it's not fair to rate this a 4 because I wanted it to be longer than it was.

I haven't read anything else by this author but I will after this one. ...more

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