I’m currently reading Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow. I think I requested it because I went to Memphis back in December and I wanted to read something set in the city.
So far, it’s disappointing.
The story jumps out of the timeline and goes back and forth between so many different characters that it’s become tiring. The story of the women Stringfellow is telling is interesting and could be so much more, but it’s just not. I know it’s supposed to be about the Black experience over a 50-ish year span in one city but I’m just not feeling it. Some of the characters’ choices I’m questioning and other events that need deeper description just doesn’t have it. Maybe I’m not seeing what the author wants me to see. Am I being willfully blind to the Black experience? I don’t think so…I just want this book to tell me more than it’s telling me. Maybe it just needed a couple more rounds with the editor, I don’t even know.
I’m having a hard time with books these days, apparently. I probably won’t write a review for this book because I don’t know what else to say about it.
Ashley French 