The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

How I Found: I was pulled in by the idea of magical realism in a slave narrative. With stories from Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs who changed the world through their courageous acts against the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery at the forefront of these invaluable stories, I was curious what impact magical realism would have. Coates’ fiction pulled me more deeply into the darkness of those times than I had yet to go. With so much focus on freedom from other stories we often forget to consider who is left behind, “What did it mean to be free in a city such as this when all whom you loved were tasked?” And how, without them, freedom is just another task to labor under.
Why You Might Read: Rightfully so, slave narratives focus on the brutality, but Coates tells a tale that commingles that pain with deep love. It is this juxtaposition that both breaks and heals not only the characters’ but the readers’ hearts. This is the magic that could be nothing but real and makes this a novel everyone should read.

Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?