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Post by Kao on Jul 13, 2020 14:37:30 GMT
I didn't find her needy...just slightly messy. I like books that are set in NYC, but this one was disappointing. There are books where the city itself is a character in the book, and this one was more like someone copying a description of NYC based on travel documents? Only the sections about DUMBO seemed real. And her friend was like everyone's version of the perfect Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I know that there's a lot of trust-fund girls in NYC and they all seem to gravitate towards the arts for some reason but there's a certain lack of care with that character...she doesn't start acting like a real person until...the bad things start to happen.
I'm now reading The Southern Book Club's Guide to Killing Vampires and loving it. These people are all messy in the greatest of ways and I'm loving it.
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Post by ibot2much on Jul 13, 2020 15:05:32 GMT
I am half way through NORMAL PEOPLE and I don't care for it especially. I don't find either of the two main characters interesting and I am surprised at how great the reviews were for such a boring book filled with ordinary activities.
I will stay to the end as I don't hate it, but unless it picks up quickly, I will remain surprised it was so highly regarded.
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Post by acookertv on Jul 13, 2020 15:32:25 GMT
I am half way through NORMAL PEOPLE and I don't care for it especially. I don't find either of the two main characters interesting and I am surprised at how great the reviews were for such a boring book filled with ordinary activities. I will stay to the end as I don't hate it, but unless it picks up quickly, I will remain surprised it was so highly regarded. I just finished it this weekend, and felt the same way you do. I was excited to read it with all the buzz, but found it so hard to read! The lack of quotation marks did not help at all! I've read three books this year that didn't use them and I do NOT like the trend! With Normal People I found it especially hard to figure out what was dialogue and what was a character thinking. I also found the amount of words dedicated to things like how each person took their coffee, what food went into the microwave and for how long, etc to be overkill. Those things made it so hard to read that I never felt invested in the characters. |
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Post by Navybelle on Jul 15, 2020 5:21:11 GMT
I love getting my books through the library, too, Critical even though the waiting lists for some are so long! I read Just Mercy too, and holy cow, astounding and horrifying. Right now I'm just getting started with The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. I'm listening to it on audio so I can get some chores done, and Tom Hanks is reading it. He's so good. Since I'm just getting into it, I'm not going to decide on it yet. It's holding my attention, but we'll see where we go from here. From Amazon: Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.Goodreads link |
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Post by ibot2much on Jul 15, 2020 20:17:00 GMT
acookertv: I didn't realize that NORMAL PEOPLE was a streamed movie as was LITTTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE and DEFENDINg JACOB--- both of which I loved. NP didn't go anywhere even at the end. Boring.
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Post by acookertv on Jul 15, 2020 21:20:07 GMT
acookertv: I didn't realize that NORMAL PEOPLE was a streamed movie as was LITTTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE and DEFENDINg JACOB--- both of which I loved. NP didn't go anywhere even at the end. Boring. Yes! I'm watching Defending Jacob right now. Two epsides in and so far they are following pretty close to the book |
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Post by Kao on Jul 16, 2020 14:11:35 GMT
Finished The Southern Book Club's Guide to Killing Vampires and goodness, what a ride! Loved it! I was really glad that every man got his comeuppance in the book because they were all terrible. I loled at this line by the vampire because in many Southern towns it's true:
"I keep coming back here because you're all stupid. All that matters to you is if someone's White and has money, and you don't pay attention otherwise."
The book is dark in certain parts but it doesn't make it any less enjoyable. Check it out if you haven't already.
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Post by Kao on Jul 31, 2020 17:14:56 GMT
Currently reading Unorthodox and while it's not like the Netflix show yet (I've just read the first 100 pages that deal with her teen years in Williamsburg) I'm still finding it enjoyable. She started questioning things early, and I think a lot of that had to do with how...messed up a lot of her relatives treated her because of her parents. The only person that was truly kind to her was Bubbly.  I honestly think if they were a lot kinder to her she would still be in. |
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Post by Critical on Aug 3, 2020 4:41:55 GMT
Currently reading Unorthodox and while it's not like the Netflix show yet (I've just read the first 100 pages that deal with her teen years in Williamsburg) I'm still finding it enjoyable. She started questioning things early, and I think a lot of that had to do with how...messed up a lot of her relatives treated her because of her parents. The only person that was truly kind to her was Bubbly. I honestly think if they were a lot kinder to her she would still be in. I read both of her books not long after I watched the Netflix show. Lots of differences between the books and the show, for sure. I enjoyed both, but I generally always enjoy the book more!
I'm currently slogging through John Bolton's The Room Where It Happened and BELIEVE ME, it is a SLOG. UGH. I find Bolton's political views repugnant, but as soon as anyone tells me I can't/shouldn't read something, you can bet I'm reading it. Sadly, it's just really ploddingly paced and boring. All that's missing is "Dear Diary" before each date. It's literally just a tedious walk through of pretty much every single day he spent in association with the current resident in the White House. Very, "this happened, then this happened, then this happened" over and over again. Bolton is SO arrogant - HE is the only one who knows what's right - and he makes pronouncements about the policies of previous administrations without actually explaining why this policy or that one is "disastrous" or "misguided." I seriously wish there was a guide to read just the juicy parts! I'm skimming at this point. At least it's from the library - I definitely wouldn't put any money into his pockets!
I'm also reading I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara, which I wanted to read even before I started watching the HBO docuseries of the same name. It details the hunt for the Golden State Killer and is something I really should not read at night! It's especially scary because some of the invasion/rapes were within minutes from my house - one location she talks about is maybe 1.5 miles away and I know the street and neighborhood well. It's also bittersweet reading the book notations throughout the book when certain chapters were completed using Michelle's notes. She's so linked to that case, that it's heartbreaking to know she didn't live long enough to see the GSK identified and arrested.
Next up is, among others, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon. I've read a few chapters, but wanted to deal with the Bolton book first, since it's due back to the library first.
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Post by acookertv on Aug 3, 2020 10:55:38 GMT
Over the weekend I read Friends and Strangers. I thought it was okay, but consider it to be a 200 page story in a 400 page book. The story went down a lot of rabbit holes that didn't seem to have a purpose to me. The characters also had some ignored flaws that didn't make me hate them, but annoyed me enough that I wasn't dying to spend time with them.
I moved on from that reading 200 pages of The Beauty in Breaking - a memoir by an ER doctor. Very enjoyable!
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Post by waywyrd on Aug 3, 2020 12:44:02 GMT
Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly. A quick and fairly disturbing story of a reporter who pretended to be insane to get herself committed to an asylum in 1887 New York. It's amazing how easy it was for her to do, and how horribly people were treated back then.
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Post by AZChristian on Aug 6, 2020 0:27:00 GMT
I don't read the high-class stuff most of you do. I read for entertainment, not for enrichment. LOL.
But - with the pandemic - I decided to re-read all of the James Patterson "Women's Murder Club" series in anticipation of Book 20 coming out. Yes, I read 19 books as a warm-up for Book 20. I've always enjoyed the characters and find it to be a great way to escape from reality for the hours each book takes to read.
So I just finished "The 20th Victim." I won't spoil anything for any of you who may plan to read it, but I was disappointed on two very important issues. The one I won't mention, but the second is that they recycled plots from TWO of the earlier books. I was so annoyed that I actually left a review on Amazon.
It's like finding out that an old friend is not who you thought they were. Can you get over the disappointment? Or do you just go make new friends?
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Post by acookertv on Aug 6, 2020 0:34:56 GMT
I finished The Beauty in Breaking yesterday. It didn’t finish as strong as it started. It was interesting and I enjoyed it. But when I finished, I was left wondering why exactly she’d written it, which I don’t think is good for a memoir.
Today I started The Nickel Boys by Colton Whitehead.
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Post by Arielflies on Aug 6, 2020 3:26:10 GMT
I don't read the high-class stuff most of you do. I read for entertainment, not for enrichment. LOL. But - with the pandemic - I decided to re-read all of the James Patterson "Women's Murder Club" series in anticipation of Book 20 coming out. Yes, I read 19 books as a warm-up for Book 20. I've always enjoyed the characters and find it to be a great way to escape from reality for the hours each book takes to read. So I just finished "The 20th Victim." I won't spoil anything for any of you who may plan to read it, but I was disappointed on two very important issues. The one I won't mention, but the second is that they recycled plots from TWO of the earlier books. I was so annoyed that I actually left a review on Amazon. It's like finding out that an old friend is not who you thought they were. Can you get over the disappointment? Or do you just go make new friends? Is Patterson still writing them or does he enjoy a ghostly companion? I enjoyed the TV series, short-lived that it was. |
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Post by AZChristian on Aug 6, 2020 14:46:17 GMT
I don't read the high-class stuff most of you do. I read for entertainment, not for enrichment. LOL. But - with the pandemic - I decided to re-read all of the James Patterson "Women's Murder Club" series in anticipation of Book 20 coming out. Yes, I read 19 books as a warm-up for Book 20. I've always enjoyed the characters and find it to be a great way to escape from reality for the hours each book takes to read. So I just finished "The 20th Victim." I won't spoil anything for any of you who may plan to read it, but I was disappointed on two very important issues. The one I won't mention, but the second is that they recycled plots from TWO of the earlier books. I was so annoyed that I actually left a review on Amazon. It's like finding out that an old friend is not who you thought they were. Can you get over the disappointment? Or do you just go make new friends? Is Patterson still writing them or does he enjoy a ghostly companion? I enjoyed the TV series, short-lived that it was. As with most of Patterson's books (because he seems to come out with new books once a week), he has a co-writer. The co-writer for most of the WMC books has been Maxine Paetro. I thought the first few books (not with Maxine) were better, and one of the repeated plot lines in 20th Victim was from the second book. So it's a new plot line for her, but not for dedicated readers. |
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Post by ibot2much on Aug 6, 2020 18:13:57 GMT
I am half way through 28 SUMMERS by Elin Hilderbrand. I like her books for summer reading as they take place in MA. This has a bit more depth than her normal stuff.
I finished THE GREAT ALONE. I started to read it in February but it was just too cold here to read about the deathly cold of Alaska. It was OK but I really didn't like the mother and father of the main character.
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Post by acookertv on Aug 6, 2020 18:40:59 GMT
I am half way through 28 SUMMERS by Elin Hilderbrand. I like her books for summer reading as they take place in MA. This has a bit more depth than her normal stuff. I finished THE GREAT ALONE. I started to read it in February but it was just too cold here to read about the deathly cold of Alaska. It was OK but I really didn't like the mother and father of the main character. I thought The Great Alone was overhyped. To me, half the book told you the characters were a certain way, and then it did a total about face on those characterizations in order to have drama! Thanks for the info on 28 Summers! I used to read a lot of Elin Hilderbrand books and loved them, but lost interest with too many that were the same old fluff. If this one has a little more depth, I may add it to my list! |
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Post by acookertv on Aug 10, 2020 0:33:53 GMT
I finished The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead today. Whitehead just has an amazing takent for plucking history you’ve read about from your mind and telling stories about it in a way that places it in your heart.
Now I’m waiting to see if my book of the month delivery arrives tomorrow before deciding what is up next.
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Post by Navybelle on Aug 10, 2020 4:50:28 GMT
"Roomies" by Christina Lauren, which I'm finding very entertaining. I love it when a book makes me laugh right out loud, when I'm all alone. Looks like there were plans to make it into a movie, too!  From Goodreads: From subway to Broadway to happily ever after. Modern love in all its thrill, hilarity, and uncertainty has never been so compulsively readable as in New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren’s romantic novel.
Marriages of convenience are so...inconvenient.
For months Holland Bakker has invented excuses to descend into the subway station near her apartment, drawn to the captivating music performed by her street musician crush. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, fate steps in one night in the form of a drunken attacker. Calvin Mcloughlin rescues her, but quickly disappears when the police start asking questions.
Using the only resource she has to pay the brilliant musician back, Holland gets Calvin an audition with her uncle, Broadway’s hottest musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he’s in the country illegally, his student visa having expired years ago.
Seeing that her uncle needs Calvin as much as Calvin needs him, a wild idea takes hold of her. Impulsively, she marries the Irishman, her infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves and Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway—in the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting—will Holland and Calvin to realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago? |
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Post by Critical on Aug 12, 2020 7:19:30 GMT
I finished Slavery by Another Name on Sunday and I am still wrecked. It was so upsetting and disturbing and I can't recommend it highly enough.
I have a degree in history and I had NO idea this happened. On every other page there was some shocking fact or statistic. YEARS after the Emancipaton Proclamation and the so-called end to slavery, a black man could be walking down a street, doing nothing wrong, and be arrested and charged with a crime. An official could slap him with a fine that he couldn't afford and then a white man would step in and pay it in exchange for a period of forced servitude in a large-scale operation like a coal mine or an agricultural business where these (mostly) men endured horrific abuse. It was even more violent than under slavery because these monsters could just go get more workers if the ones they had died and it would cost them a fraction of what they paid under slavery. This involved county and state governments, which received money from these businesses in exchange for more workers. These business owners would literally ask for workers and there were people who would round up unsuspecting men (and some women) and deliver them. SO many people died. Violently and horribly. This was still happening well into the 1940s I was telling my mom about it and she was just as horrified as I am - maybe moreso because she was alive when this was still going on.
This book should be required reading for everyone. It's sobering and sickening, but SO important. There was a documentary (series?) of the same name on PBS that I think is still available. Yesterday I finished Mary Trump's, Too Much and Never Enough and, WOW, what a messed up family! Much more well written than John Bolton's snoozefest. Not going to get into the politics of it - which really wasn't a focal point - but I will say that, clearly, money does NOT buy happiness, 'cause those people all sound miserable.
Now I'm doing a palate cleanse with some lighter fare - Naya Rivera's Sorry, Not Sorry. I'm preparing myself for the crying that's definitely going to happen. I sort of knew she'd been a child actor, but didn't realize quite how early she started AND that, not only was she on Redd Foxx's last show, he died right in front of her - she wasn't even 5 years old |
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Post by Navybelle on Aug 14, 2020 5:16:46 GMT
^ I wanted to give your post a "thumbs up" but didn't feel it fit. I do appreciate the take on that book, though, and agree that something so horrific -- and true -- should be known!! Wow. Let me guess, Alabama and Mississippi were rife with this practice, perhaps Georgia too? Everything I've read recently point to those states with examples of terrible racism, unfairness, etc., that has made me sick.
Thanks for the bit on Mary Trump's book too; I've no interest in reading it, but I like hearing other's perspectives.
I've been doing a few palate cleansers myself, mostly because real life is the heavy right now. I needed something light, humorous, and maybe a little mindless to keep my mind off the stress of real life. When I can barely deal with real life drama, the last thing I want to do is get lost in a deep, emotionally taxing book, so I've had to adjust my To-Read list.
I finished "Roomies" which I liked a lot, and now am on "Beach Read" by Emily Henry.
Goodreads:
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They're polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
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Post by ibot2much on Aug 14, 2020 20:11:52 GMT
I just finished BEACH READ. I got bored halfway through and ended up skimming just to see if anything wonderful happened. I was very surprised that the book was on so many best selling lists as she had no track record. Often an ordinary book by some well known author gets on the list because of the writer's reputation and then fades off quickly. This book has been on for a while and I just did not see why.
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Post by Critical on Aug 15, 2020 0:08:30 GMT
^ I wanted to give your post a "thumbs up" but didn't feel it fit. I do appreciate the take on that book, though, and agree that something so horrific -- and true -- should be known!! Wow. Let me guess, Alabama and Mississippi were rife with this practice, perhaps Georgia too? Everything I've read recently point to those states with examples of terrible racism, unfairness, etc., that has made me sick. Thanks for the bit on Mary Trump's book too; I've no interest in reading it, but I like hearing other's perspectives. How did you know?  It was pretty much ALL of the south, including the three states you listed, as well as Louisiana, Florida, Texas and others. The author focused quite a bit on Alabama and used the story of one family, beginning with the family members who were enslaved and then continuing with how this system of neoslavery impacted a member of that family, to tell the larger story. I had no idea that there was a good amount of coal mining in Alabama and that's one of the industries that benefited from this practice. The author also traces the lines of that system to companies still in business. BIG companies, one of which is Wachovia Bank ( Wachovia apologizes for slavery ties) faced that history and did the right thing. Others didn't want to face or acknowledge the connection.
I've always bristled when people talk about how slavery ended over 100 years ago and that African Americans need to "get over it," but it's even more infuriating because it DIDN'T end. I felt that way before I knew that it actually didn't end at all....just in name. I partly can't blame those people for their ignorance, but I also feel like a huge infusion of empathy wouldn't be out of line at the moment. I've long had issues with his history (and everything else) is taught in this country, but this is just one example of why that whole system needs to be overhauled. Maybe the people in charge think telling difficult, painful truths will upset kids, but I think the problem is that those truths upset the adults. Kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have spent money on the Mary Trump book (borrowed it from the library), but I was curious. I saw some reader reviews complaining about how she focused a lot on her father and her grandparents, but I figured that would be the case. She's telling the story of the family and how it produced the person it produced. Like a perfect storm of sociopathy. It's definitely true that some people should NEVER have children and Fred and Mary Anne Trump definitely go on that list.
I finished the Naya Rivera bio this afternoon. There were just too many moments where she talked about growing old, having more kids, the future, etc. She didn't trash Lea Michele the way I think a lot of people may have wanted her to, but she does address that relationship. It sounds like they were friends until Naya started getting more screen time and Lea didn't want any competition.
I've moved on now to Colin Jost's memoir, A Very Punchable Face. He was on the Armchair Expert podcast and I remembered that I had a galley of the book, so I went looking for it. It's light and funny and smart, kind of like him.
I finally ordered a copy of White Fragility, so I'll be doing some heavy reading (I think of it as the work I need to do as a human being) soon.
One thing about Covid, it's definitely helped me blow through my Goodreads reading goal for the year. I started out setting a goal of 75 books for the year. I completed that this week and upped it to 100. Maybe I'll have to up it again, since I'm already ahead of the pace I need to hit that goal. You know, lemons to lemonade!
Oh, and I'm plugging away on Chernow's Hamilton bio. I'm trying to get through 1% per day. I did buy it in paper, but it's SO big that it's hard to hold. I bought the Kindle version for my dad, but I've ended up reading it in that format instead.
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Post by Kao on Aug 19, 2020 21:00:19 GMT
Slavery by Another Name should be required reading in HS, but unfortunately, we all know why it's not. :/ The practices in that book are partially the reason why The Great Migration happened in the first place. The great artist Jacob Lawrence created a whole series of 60 paintings, and some of the panels dealt with Black people getting tricked into inservitude. I went to his Great Migration exhibit at MoMa a few years ago and it covered that and other issues. www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1495
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Post by Critical on Aug 20, 2020 8:34:25 GMT
Slavery by Another Name should be required reading in HS, but unfortunately, we all know why it's not. :/ The practices in that book are partially the reason why The Great Migration happened in the first place. The great artist Jacob Lawrence created a whole series of 60 paintings, and some of the panels dealt with Black people getting tricked into inservitude. I went to his Great Migration exhibit at MoMa a few years ago and it covered that and other issues. www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1495 For sure. Sadly too, the people who really NEED to read books like that won't. I think some people (also, not the people who SHOULD know) know about the Great Migration and understand the reasons, but I don't think they know the full story. I know I didn't. I read the majority of that book in absolute horror. I cried, I felt helpless and SO angry.
My new copy of White Fragility came the other day, so that's up next. I knew I'd probably want to mark pages (with flags, not with a pen - I'm not a monster! ), so I bought a paper copy vs. borrowing it from the library. I'm not really a person who shies away from talking about racism, but I know I can always do better.
Thanks for the MoMa link! I'm an admirer of Jacob Lawrence and love when artists get political. Have you ever seen the Abu Ghraib series Fernando Botero did? SO powerful, all the more so because he's not especially known for that sort of work. The art museum I worked at years ago had a fantastic show of Bettye Saar's work. She's not as well known as Lawrence or Faith Ringgold, but her work is amazing. We did a members event and Ms. Saar was there. I have a signed copy of the exhibition catalog. One of the perks of working in an art museum!
I'm also reading a galley of If I Disappear by Eliza Jane Brazier. This is WAY in advance - late January 2021 - and I normally stick to reading stuff that's closer to its release date, but this just came up on my Kindle and I was feeling indecisive!
I can't say I'm loving it, but I applaud the author trying something different. The book is in first person, but sort of as a one-sided dialogue with Sera talking to Rachel, the missing podcaster.
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Post by Critical on Aug 26, 2020 10:47:55 GMT
I'm in one of my indecisive reading periods, so I have four books going right now. I started Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham a few days ago - it's a library loan, so I needed to move it to the front of the reading queue. Since my emphasis in college was Eastern Europe and Russian history, I know a fair amoung about Russian history, but not much about Chernobyl.....and much of what I know now is from the excellent HBO miniseries (seriously, if you haven't seen it, WATCH IT NOW!). I'm also reading Abi Dare's The Girl With the Louding Voice,which is excellent, but took a bit to get into. The book is written in the character's "broken" English, so I had to adjust to the rhythms of her language.
My book club - which exclusively reads books about art, hasn't met since February, so I'm missing my art books! I'm reading The Modern Art Invasion by Elizabeth Lunday about the 1913 art show at the NY Armory that turned the art world on it's ear.
I'm also sstill (slowly) plugging away on Chernow's Hamilton bio. It's very good, but not something I can sit and read for hours at a time. I'm already eyeing his bio of John D. Rockefeller, Titan. Might get that one at Christmas as a gift to me AND my dad!
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Post by acookertv on Aug 30, 2020 19:14:40 GMT
This afternoon I finished The Soul of America by Jon Meacham. It’s not often I declare my love for an author when I finish the last passage of a book but I did with this one. I’d recommend it for anyone who is worried about the world today feeling like it’s never been this way. Meacham illustrates how it has ... and the qualities we exhibit to get past it.
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Post by Critical on Sept 6, 2020 4:53:50 GMT
I finished Midnight in Chernobyl a few days ago. It was excellent. Horrifying and upsetting, but excellent. My mind saw too many parallels between our current situation in the US and what happened then, with respect to the government trying to control information and leaders trying to downplay the severity of the situation....all while people are dying or in danger. I did watch Chernobyl on HBO when it aired, but now I want to watch it again, since I know a lot more about it.
I needed to read something a bit less serious after that, so I read the first two (and only, so far) books in Charlaine Harris' Gunnie Rose series, An Easy Death and A Longer Fall. Alternate history, magic, gunfights, what's not to like?
I just started J. Courtney Sullivan's Friends and Strangers. It's been on a bunch of "best of" lists this year.
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Post by acookertv on Sept 6, 2020 12:09:21 GMT
I’ll be curious to hear what you think of Friends and Strangers Critical! It did not turn out to be what I thought it would be!
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Post by ibot2much on Sept 14, 2020 15:49:58 GMT
I just finished BIG LITTLE LIES and I loved, loved it. I had not seen the HBO series so I was not spoied for the book so I enjoyed every page--especially the "hints" about the ending. One of the most enjoyable books I have read in a while.
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I honestly think if they were a lot kinder to her she would still be in.
It was pretty much ALL of the south, including the three states you listed, as well as Louisiana, Florida, Texas and others. The author focused quite a bit on Alabama and used the story of one family, beginning with the family members who were enslaved and then continuing with how this system of neoslavery impacted a member of that family, to tell the larger story. I had no idea that there was a good amount of coal mining in Alabama and that's one of the industries that benefited from this practice. The author also traces the lines of that system to companies still in business. BIG companies, one of which is Wachovia Bank (