A review by i_am_selinam
Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux

2.0

Pretty ironic that the villain said that being a nun was a caricature when all of the characters in this story were all caricatures.

I enjoyed Turpin's narration, loved Patti the black cat, and liked the setting Louisiana. 

Besides these three, I did not enjoy the rest of this story, no matter how hard I tried.


I understand that the author wants to have a judgmental Southern auntie as the heroine, and that's why offensive statements were made by her dkdkf but the number of paragraphs describing fat men and 'shameful' women made me think that it's actually a personal prejudice by the author. (I hope I am wrong though.)

I also felt underwhelmed with the points this book tried to put forth. 

While the intent to cohesively talk about environmental racism and systemic oppression are apparent, the pacing of the story and overall execution were off. This really could've been easily pointed out by the editor/s if there were some.

Lastly, I'm not convinced that the main leads are family. 

I actually forgot that they're supposed to be mother and daughter while listening because their interactions are so stale and repetitive. 

Again, one can argue that it's because they're estranged with each other, but sometimes the dialogue of Delphine is obviously meant to be the voice of reason with Glory's brashness.

Besides this though, the daughter had no other personality besides being a cheater and the Other Woman of 2 different married men. Ohh and she's also a corporate lawyer.

I'm not even gonna go about the 'love' triangle. Uhh.

*TW: Drugs, Domestic Abuse, Infidelity, Sexism, Racism, Internalized Racism, Fatphobia