“We the trickster—the spider, the rabbit, even the fox. We fool those stronger than us. That’s how we survive. Watch out you don’t get tricked yo’self!”

After all the hype I've seen surrounding Ring Shout I must say as a history and book nerd I was not disappointed. As a reader, you can tell that even though Ring Shout is a novella, a novel type work was put into it (ahaha). Clark throws the reader into the story right away and does not let them come up for air until the very last word on the very last page. Personally, I want to go through all the references from my Decentred Lit syllabus (co-curated by the author) and then come back and read the book again. There were a lot of layers to Ring Shout that I don't think can be appreciated with just one read. On the surface, though it is an action-packed novel that will draw you in. I love that reading allows readers to look deeper beneath the surface and discover; really appreciating all that the author put into the book. Ring Shout is my first taste of P. Djeli Clark and I want more of his work.

Storywise the characters were all entertaining and well-filled out. The main character has a great story ARC and character growth in less than 200 pages!! Some authors were meant to write and Clark is one of those. The magical realism/fantasy/paranormal aspect of the book was intriguing. The culmination of the end was a tad much for me looking back now, but in the moment of reading it, I was hooked. I really really really enjoyed the language in this book. Clark unapologetically puts Gullah language in here (without a guide) and lets the reader feel their way through the speech of some of the characters. I am once again reminded how slavery has bound people from around the world together as the Gullah style of speech is extremely similar to Bahamian Creole.