I just have to accept that this year my ability to read as quickly as I have in previous years will not exist. There is a lot of uncertain and anxiety here and I think the cultural anxieties are having more of an effect on me than any of my own. We are, after all, living through a global pandemic. Sometimes you can't pay attention enough to get lost in a book.

This isn't to say that at points I wasn't lost in the book. I've spent more than few nights well past my bed time working my way through a particular section both enthralled, entertained and horrified. It's pretty difficult to describe the book because really it's about the contours of lives, of (mostly) Black women, about their lives. It's sweeping, yet intimate, very moral and heartfelt, vulnerable and fierce. It contains the expanses of a life: of extensive collection of a dozen people and how their lives intersect, the unity amongst them, but also works as a tapestry that makes the sum larger than the parts.

Evaristo's roots in poetry shine here and it felt like reading a 450 page poetic work at points, how lines are packed with meaning but with accessible enough language.

A few points of criticism, some personal: my eye really resists undifferentiated speech in prose writing. When there are no speech marks, even all clearly labelled I can sometimes lose the rhythms of writing. Evaristo has such rhythm that I struggle to actually mark her down for it, but I felt similarly in [b:Normal People|41086877|Normal People|Sally Rooney|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556822947l/41086877._SY75_.jpg|59141209]. It really is me, because Evaristo does a have such a sense of rhythm. I could put out all the pages that demonstrate this but I probably just end up transcribing the book and that's a whole copyright issue I don't want on my plate.

Not all parts are created equal, however. While I was absolutely enthralled by sections such as Dominque's and Carole's, others didn't have the same sort of strength of narrative. I am conscious that I used examples with some of the most harrowing events in the book but I'd like to think that's contingent. While some parts were weaker than the others, I was never bored. Evaristo really is so deft with character voice: slang, observational culture, and language (slang, etc.) everything flows so naturally. It was rhythm.

The connections towards the end might be a bit neat for people, bordering on narrative contrivance, but even at this book's weakness, it shows such a confidence of voice, of storytelling, it fits the themes of the book. The final lines speak it the best:

"this is about being
together."

That is what the book is for. So I like to think I came out of this changed, and for the better. It was an exercise in empathy.