Books like Red River

\ Necessary but not sure about the score.\ I guess I'll give this book a 3. I'm really on the fence about what I feel about this book. The author Lalita Tademy has painstakingly researched her family history on both sides, maternal and paternal. Even though one can find a lot of records, historical items and learn through stories passed down, some parts of the genealogy puzzle due to the passing of time are doomed to forever be a mystery. Lalita is brilliant with the idea of taking those true pieces and weaving a historical fiction account of what could have happened in her family and the town they lived in. She has done this with Cane River (her maternal side and first book) and now with Red River (her paternal side and second book). Both books take the reading traveler back to slavery and come forward closer to modern times. There are maps and photos throughout. This makes for an interesting experience, being able to see pictures of real live people mentioned in the book. I have to give the author much credit for her research and for her efforts. She is telling little known stories and information about the African American experience historically that not many others are telling. It is necessary to hear. For this reason I commend her greatly. It's a point of view through the eyes of people that were really there. It is something that should be told. I felt for her ancestors plight because for all I know, it could be similar to my people who come before me. A lot of it was sad, bitter and heart wrenching, but so is real life. If it does not kill you it makes you stronger. The Tademys did just that. This the story of a town and the strong Black families that in the face of racism did not allow hate to kill their drive for better. Now, to the facts that prohibit a higher score. I give these with a heavy sigh. Like a teacher who must give a good student a bad grade because in truth the work was not up to par.... Here we go. This book was a slow starter. I felt as if I went for an extremely long time trying to get warmed up. I kept reading because I wanted to read this book but I can see how one not as determined may put it down. The first more than half of the book droned on in excruciating detail about this "riot/massacre". Although, yes I believe it's a not well known piece of history that deserves to be told it could have been cut down by half. Once the saga moved on there were some day to day things that were uninteresting. I skimmed a lot. I felt like this saga droned on for so long that I was just ready to finish this book. I started counting how many pages I had left to finish. Toward the end strangely it gained a little steam again. Just as I became interested in this new generation of family characters.. The book finished. When I think about it, this is the same feeling that I had about her first book. It's like she wears herself out with the detail and overwriting through more than half of the book, skips through toward the end, gets a second wind and then someone yells "time" at 400 some pages and it can end. Way too many pages. I could have done with less overwriting of the war scenes in the first half, a climax and more detail on the characters that I don't feel got their time in the spotlight toward the end. For those reasons, this doesn't get anything close to perfect. Yes I recommend it for the history. I want to read more books by this author but I'm almost afraid to get hit with this same dragging formula again. Next book please.