Despite a disappointing ending that I felt cheated the reader and the main character, I really enjoyed this book. It's a fun adventure that also explores the dark places of the heart.
Jul 11, 2022DeeHC rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Edugyan's novel is very much patterned after 19th century adventure novels, giving a somewhat fantastical tale with many coincidences and travels to far off lands. It even has the same tone and cadences of one of those earlier novels. But…
Mar 21, 2022dirtbag rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Overrated. It was very well written and the author has considerable talent but after awhile it was too long, too boring and you didn't really care about any of the characters. Seems like the author does it for "show" not for entertainment.…
May 11, 2021rab1953 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
This book explores the complications of freedom in a hostile world. Freedom from slavery and oppression are obviously highly desirable, and Edugyan shows how destructive plantation slavery was. The everyday fear of brutal punishment for…
Apr 30, 2021DracAthos rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
I thought that this book was beautifully written but slightly far fetched.
The fact that this young man was able to go from Barbados to Chesapeake to the Arctic and Nova Scotia as well as Europe and Morocco in 1835 made me highly…
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan is a story of a slave named George Washington “Wash” Black on a Caribbean plantation in the early 1800’s, a period of increasing enlightenment among individuals and the great inventions of the Industrial…
Dec 16, 2020PDBurt rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Even though this was a page turner there was something not quite right about it. Washington finds a troubling freedom, has unbelievable adventures, is haunted by abandonment, falls in love, enjoys painting and sketching, is fascinated with…
Dec 11, 2020joe_strnad rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
One of my favorites I've read this year. Edugyan used a lot of 19th C vernacular - some readers may find difficult yet I appreciated the effort and style; helped maintain setting and tone of the story. Loved her descriptions of characters'…
Sep 21, 2020mmyjer20 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I liked this book. The author writes well. The story could've been a bit more exciting as you were lead to believe that the boy would be taken on many more adventures in the balloon. But I liked it.
Aug 23, 2020andreareads rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
There are brutal details of life on the slave plantation at the beginning of the book. Wash's life does get better, but be warned that the start of it makes for tough reading.
Aug 06, 2020Jenkskitten rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
A great story of an eight year old slave boy from Barbados growing into manhood. He encounters prejudice, fear, betrayal, scorn, tragedies and rejection, along with a God given talent, direction by welling meaning people, a scientific…
Jul 14, 20200Charlie rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I'm not quite sure how to describe this work. I was carried along with the adventures of the main character, Wash, a young black slave on a plantation in the Barbados in the early 1800's. He ends up travelling across the globe and I was…
Mar 13, 2020soublaki rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This is an exceptional work of modern literature that I couldn’t put down. I felt a deep empathy for the protagonist Washington whose journey through slavery and beyond takes the reader on a voyage across land and seas towards…
Feb 07, 2020Blabbermouth rated this title 0.5 out of 5 stars
This story about Washington Black starts when he is an eleven year old slave in a Barbados sugar cane plantation. Two brothers are the white owners, one kind, one sadistic & cruel. The kind one shows favour to Washington & eventually they…
Jan 18, 2020gloryb rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
The beginning of the story reminded me of a young adult novel I had read 10 years ago called, "Octavian Nothing" where a black child is educated by a white scientist. The story was interesting until the end of the Arctic expedition and…
r
rslade
Dec 25, 2019
The writing, overall, is beautiful and evocative. But the plotting is random, and the characters, particularly the central character and narrator, are inconsistent and even contradictory. This makes it a difficult and demanding read.
Nov 29, 2019upshiftott rated this title 0.5 out of 5 stars
For me, this is a story about a person, who was born into an incredibly inhumane environment, but through circumstance was able to escape.
Rather than graditude the protagonist became a "whiner" with an "axe to grind" , especially…
Comments (75)
Washington Black