I mentioned in my previous post that I gave this book a 3. I also mentioned that I rarely give books a 1 or 2 star review. Usually 2 stars is for a book that I hated but felt compelled to finish for one reason or another. 1 star is reserved almost exclusively for books I DNF’d and have no intention of picking up again. So why did I give this a 3?

First, the good things. Nicole Dennis-Benn did an amazing job of capturing the patois of Jamaica. Most of the characters use this patois, with one specifically switching back and forth depending on whom she is speaking to. It’s masterfully done and yet easy to read even if you’re not incredibly familiar with the style. She also did a wonderful job portraying the beauty and the poverty of Jamaica. You can easily see the trees, flowers, and ocean as well as the flea-bitten dogs and shoeless children. Her words paint a picture, both audibly and visually.

So why didn’t I like it? Mostly because of the characters. Literally every character is in it for themselves, and that would be fine, but most of them, specifically the three main characters (all women, a mother, older sister, and younger sister) think that they are in it for others. The mother thinks she has sacrificed everything for her children. The older daughter thinks she’s sacrificed everything for her younger sister. The younger sister feels she has been forced into a life she didn’t want because she’s supposed to be the one who makes it out of poverty and lifts up her mother and sister. Yet, despite these feelings, all any of them can think about is themselves. The younger sister has some forgiveness for this, she is a teenager, after all, but the other two women are adults who really ought to have figured out how to be decent people by this point. The mother is abusive to her older daughter, to the point of selling her into prostitution and beating her, seemingly because she’s angry that the daughter’s father didn’t stick around. The older daughter continues the abuse, this time employing other young women as prostitutes to work for the local hotel chain (mostly so that she can take over as manager of the big new hotel and further her own dreams). The younger daughter wants to go to art school, and is, apparently, quite talented. She also sort of wants to give it all up for a boy, which further infuriates her older sister and mother as they both feel men are the problem.

I don’t know, I guess by the end of the book I just didn’t care enough about any of the women. The one I cared the most about was a satellite character that was sort of dating the older daughter, but you rarely actually get anything from her perspective. I would have loved a book just about her! I realize it might be naive to think that the characters should have been better, and maybe that was one of the things Dennis-Benn was trying to support with her writing, that people aren’t better, but I just couldn’t care enough about anyone for it to matter.

Ultimate result: 3 of 5 stars