Lucinda Roy

The Freedom Race
by Lucinda Roy
Macmillan-Tor/Forge

I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this cautionary tale. It may not be too far fetched as it seems! First, a warning about this book. It includes suggestions of mass rape, attempted rape, lynching, violence, slavery, and murder, even of babies. I didn't know this going in.

This book is when the US has had another Civil War and now it is the divided into three parts. One section is called the Territories and that's where they have slavery. Guess where that's located? South? Bingo! Only the owner of the slaves can impregnate the women. No other men can. The young are called seeds, or seedlings. When young, the color of the babies skin is measured on a chart. The darker the color, the worse the job.

Around the Territories there are bounty hunters that kill or capture any runaway. The bounty hunters have the mental attitude that the Proud Boys do now. Not good for anyone even if they are free and black. Or white with a black person. Cruelty seems to be their forte.

There are also hybrid people from the radiation fallout. The mutations that manage to live hide in the forests but bounty hunters look for them.

The story is based around one girl, a teen, that wants to win the race and be free. She has a boyfriend too. They both want to run the Freedom Race to become free but things don't go exactly as planned.

It's extremely suspenseful, depressing, odd at times, and ends strange. Maybe getting ready for book two? I did enjoy it regardless of the horror. I think the author may be looking at a future if our government doesn't save our democracy from the far right. Isn't this what they have been trying to do? It's certainly a wake up call!… (plus d'informations)

This is actually a really good book. Not a very enjoyable read though; in terms of depressing, it rates about a negative 10.

I almost put the book down and quit in the middle of the first chapter, the first few pages, I couldn’t make much sense of it. But once the actual story started from more-or-less the beginning it varied between a good story to a very excellent narrative.

I can’t say that I liked any of the characters either. Well, you have to like Prince and Mohammed IV, but all the other main characters were supremely flawed individuals... or maybe just way too human.

It is a complex story, maybe too complex, but Africa is a complex place, its cultures and histories are unique and quite unlike those on any other continent. I believe this book did a good job of illustrating the lives of a number of different cultures in one West African country, and how they intersect while still maintaining their main differences. Also how you can love a place even if it doesn’t love you back.

One line towards the end really resonated with me:

“Selling third-world news to first-world readers was tough....”

That kind of sums up the entire story: how wars and genocides can occur with regularity and the powers to prevent or stop them are not willing to do so. They just keep happening in far-flung places that virtually no one has ever heard of, and the extent of what happens is never truly known. In the end, few care and most of everyone prefers to forget - if they were even aware - as soon as possible. Sad but true.

Since this book was published in 2000, the US and Liberia have had presidents whose sole qualifications have been celebrity. In the former a Reality TV star and fake billionaire and the latter a former professional football / soccer player. Post WWII, the United States’ main export has been its western style culture. And in the past several decades, most of that has been celebrity... theater... the shiny trinkets of old. Substance is not required. The real world, well, that’s not nearly as much fun. On the back of all of that, The Hotel Alleluia reads all too true... and it’s depressing as all hell.… (plus d'informations)