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53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Salvage the Bones is as raw and real as a hurricane, July 1, 2011
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Salvage the Bones may be Jesmyn Ward's first novel, but what a novel. Each character is as alive as any ever put to a page, from the dog, China, and her dog fights, to the father, and his inability to cope as a widowed father of four. It's not a pretty story filled with flowers and perfumes, but a story of poverty and strength, hope and love, climaxing as the winds and waters of Katrina send the family into the swirling waters and howling winds to find their own salvation from the storm. Just like it seemed to all of those who survived the Storm, the days leading up to it were bigger than life, filled with the little things that made life normal as well as preparation for the storm's arrival. Just like reality, no one expected Katrina to deliver the blow it did. From Esch's pregnancy, their father's accident, the dog China and her pups, and the tragedy of youth, each character colors the tale and brings it to life. No one knew when the storm came that it was going to have the raw power it possessed. Caught in the attic, the storm surge rising, the reality of potentially drowning in their own attic grasps their attention, and in a desperate bid to find safety, a hole is smashed through the roof, and their escape is plotted. It's not without risk, and it comes with loss, but the family all make it to their temporary haven. It's a powerful story,but its not a pretty story. It ends in the chaos and confusion of the first post-storm days after Katrina, with food and water in desperate shortage and yet it finds the grace and beauty that the best of humanity possesses. It has a real-ness about it that is rare, and the book is one of the best reads I've had in a long time. I highly recommend it.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting, emotional novel, September 18, 2011
Fourteen-year-old Esch, who has just found out that she's pregnant, is simply trying to keep things at home together when she and her family learn of the hurricane that is about to hit their home in Bois Savage, Mississippi. Esch's father, a man who spends most of his time drinking, is concerned about the hurricane and tries to get she and her three brothers to board up windows and get the canned goods together in preparation. Her brother Randall begins this process, her brother Junior tries but is too young to do much, but her brother Skeetah is too busy nursing his pit bull fighter, China, back to health after the birth of her puppies. As this family struggles to pull themselves together, the hurricane becomes the backdrop for all the trials they regularly face in day-to-day life.
Salvage the Bones is unlike any novel I've read before. It is so honest, so raw, and at times so painful that I wanted to close the book and run away, but ultimately I was deeply moved by this story. Esch and her family crawled into my heart and their struggles were so palpable that I wanted to reach through the pages of the book and lift them out.
This book is not an easy read. It broke my heart a million times over. China, Skeetah's pit bull, is a fighting dog and as a person who loves pit bulls and has some very close family and friends who have pits as pets, the whole dogfighting business makes me extremely angry. So it was not the best for me to be reading about people fighting these precious, intelligent, loving, sweet animals. This was probably the most difficult aspect of the book for me, although the family does experience the actual hurricane and that portion of the book was hard to read too. Just know that while this story is not an easy one to read, it is certainly rewarding in the end.
Salvage the Bones elicited so many emotions in me as I was reading it. I was so frustrated by Esch's father's inability (or unwillingness) to take care of his family properly. Esch essentially raised her youngest brother, Junior, on her own after their mother died during his childbirth. I was so angry at the boy who got Esch pregnant as he didn't care for her at all and was, in the most clear and simple case of this I've seen in fiction, just using her for sex. I was heartbroken and mad about the fighting dogs. But mostly, the book made me feel an overwhelming sadness, the overwhelming feeling that this family just could not get it together, that things would never turn around for them. Their situation was just so upsetting, so heartbreaking, that I couldn't help but feel despair while reading about it. In fact, toward the middle of the novel there is a dogfighting scene, at which point I burst into tears and didn't stop crying until the end of the book. It affected me that much.
Salvage the Bones is an excellent, haunting novel that brought me to tears. Not much about this book is hopeful or happy, but there is a glimmer of something there at the end that makes it all worth the journey through this family's pain. This novel absolutely broke my heart, but at the same time I can't help but recommend that you read it too.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding and Well-Written, July 20, 2011
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
In Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward has deftly crafted an engrossing family story. Reading this novel is like being in the Mississippi Coastal backwoods with Esch and her family. Through the excellent characterizations, the intimate details of their lives come alive, and I so felt like an intruder. I admired how the characters, including China the dog, approached each day with a fierceness of spirit and dignity despite all of the curveballs life was throwing at them. The story is told in twelve chapters over the twelve days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, and the pacing and tone of the story matches the increasing intensity in the family lives to the increasing intensity of Hurricane Katrina. I highly recommend this story of love, pain, youth, poverty, and resilience. Their world is not perfect, but it is this imperfection that makes them survivors. Though the author's lyrical language and masterful storytelling skills, an often invisible way of life is brought to light touching our souls and humanity.
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