This book was attractive to me because of the cover art and also because I LOVED this story by the same author.
STORY SUMMARY
The "dew breaker"....torturer....is from Haiti. His horrendous and brutal crimes are secrets from his American life in NYC. He's a husband and father to one girl (an artist) and is very quiet. He has a horrible scar on his face. He works as a barber and is a landlord for two men who live in the basement apartment. Everyone in the Brooklyn neighborhood knows him...mainly because of the scar.
His wife is devoted to him and his daughter is rebellious.
The book moves between Haiti in the 1960s and NYC today.
We even meet some of his victims.
We read about his last, desparate act of violence....and his first encounter with the woman who will give him a form of redemption. This will change him forever.
MY THOUGHTS
This book was just too confusing for me to thoroughly enjoy. The writing style and literary depth is brilliant...the author is quite acclaimed...but there were too many characters to keep track of and I often had no idea just who was represented in each chapter. Each chapter seems to stand alone....and it was often difficult to figure out if I was back in the 1960s or the present day.
It was also disturbing with the descriptions of the violence.
The main themes are love, remorse/regret, and hope. It's also about rebellion....personal and political.
I kept reading because I did want to find out just which act of violence brought his wife into his life.
But I honestly didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as the other one I've read by the same author.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (Due to mature content).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 7.
2 comments:
Sounds interesting, though I don't care for books that confuse me. I may put it on my Goodreads list of "want to read"
The plot doesn't sound like one that I would get into. I have told myself that unless a book really draws me I will pass it by so I can get caught up with my huge list of books I really want to read.
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