Gr 9 Up—In this stunning portrayal of a white French family who will do anything to maintain their iron grip around
the necks of the enslaved Black people on their antebellum Louisiana plantation, Williams-Garcia has crafted an
intense saga. Masterly characterization, nuanced machinations, and incisive language are on full display in this
novel that also sheds light on current conversations about race and power.

RWG has succeeded in writing a haunting, powerful book about racism, and to get there she had to pull out all the stops. This book hits harder than any other book I've read that's marketed as YA.

The slow start and the detailed descriptions of sexual violence in this book made me feel like it's almost not YA. I can see it being assigned in an 11th or 12th grade AP lit class maybe. But there were multiple scenes that made me so sad and disgusted I have a hard time seeing myself recommend this book to most teens.

Would I recommend it to adults? Yes -- if you want to explore the vile beliefs and actions of white plantation owners. Just by coincidence, I was reading this when the third season of Succession came out on HBO. I couldn't help see similarities between the Roy family and the Guilbert family. So despicable.

When I was in the middle of the book I stopped to ponder if RWG had pulled a Hamilton (i.e. used her genius to tell yet another story about American history centering white people). But she wrote a very illuminating author's note explaining why this story revolves around the Guilbert family and not the Black characters. She cites Toni Morrison as inspiration: "What are you without racism? ...if you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem and they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it."

RWG also includes gay and gender-nonconforming (and also maybe autistic) teen characters in her story. I think this will add appeal for a teen audience because there aren't very many excellent historical YA novels featuring LGBTQ characters. ( )

A beautiful work of historical fiction, but possibly a bit too long and dense for a YA audience. In all honesty, the author's note struck me as the most poignant part of this novel and deserves to be published on its own. ( )

DNF. Too many characters and too much amorphous telling. Also I would not classify this as YA.

Got through 70+ pages. Well written but just not my genre.