Customer Reviews

Bloodlines - Tales From The African Diaspora

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really wanted to like this collection of short stories and tried hard to do so. Unfortunately, I'm just not motivated to even finish reading the whole collection because many of the stories were boring and/or incomplete. It's as if the authors just threw an outline together, wrote some sketchy dialogue/narritive and then submitted the stories for publication. For instance, Skyboat Strangers was just a re-hash of a sci-fi storyline that has been done many times before in many better ways, and The Other Wife of Cranston Livingston had great potential but ended on a flat note by not really developing any of the characters.

There were only a handful of stories that were, for me, worth reading: The story Smooth Lanes brought back memories of when my grandmother used to do my hair when I was young and hints at the issue of "good hair" and how that contributes to how pretty Black girls are thought to be, and That Old Black Magic nicely weaves musicaly lyrics into a real-life struggle of a woman dealing with the realization that her boyfriend isn't all she thinks he is.

I've read several other complilations of African American and African short stories and enjoyed them greatly but just cannot recommend this one at this time. And that's a shame because many of the authors have impressive bios. In my opinion, most of the stories were just too short and too under-developed to pack any punch or leave a positive lasting impression. Maybe, if I bring myself to finish the rest of the stories (I'm halfway through), I might change my mind. If so, I'll update this review.