The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Title: The Deep

Author: Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes

Publisher: Gallery 2019

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 175

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Ebook

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

This was such a beautiful and incredibly sad and angering book. It’s less a book with a plot and more an examination of the legacy of slavery in America. The fantastical elements allow Solomon the leeway to explore concepts of memory and history and responsibility. It took my a few days to wade through these pages as they are so incredibly dense and yet lyrical. It is a hard book to read if you think about the real life situations the book mirror. I’m pretty sure Rivers Solomon is now on my must-read author list. This is amazing…

Next up on the TBR pile:

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Title: An Unkindness of Ghosts

Author: Rivers Solomon

Publisher: Akashic Books 2017

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 340

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library; Monthly Theme

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot--if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war.

This book has been on my radar for awhile but I somehow never picked it up. I decided to add it to my short list for February and immediately started reading after finishing Kindred. The two books ended up being a great pairing. Both deal with racial issues by using science fiction to highlight the problems. I loved reading Kindred that mainly dealt in the past and how it relates to the modern, but this book took it further in dealing in the future to highlight the present. Plus we get commentary on power structures, gender divides, trans issues, class issues, and even education and knowledge. There are so many layers to this book! There are so many different topics being addressed that I don’t think I caught everything. I may have to reread this book in a few years. Beyond all the interesting topics, we get a great fast-paced plot centering on Aster’s uncovering the meaning behind her mother’s suicide and the overall mystery of the ship and where it’s headed. I was definitely along for the ride! I even loved the ending. I’m still thinking on many of the issues highlighted days later. So good!

Next up on the TBR pile: