Status Updates From Song of Redemption: A south...

She chose liberty each time no matter the cost.

Shit is about to fall apart

I hate that I have hope even though I know Danielle’s fate.

This made me cry. As I read this, I am grateful for my ancestors who kept going despite everything. I can’t imagine suffering and enduring through the horrors that white people inflicted upon them in the name of white supremacy and still having to get out of bed, work long hours in terrible conditions, while being underfed, beaten, and raped.

I can’t take this stress! The baby cannot be coming now.

This right here is romance. I’d die if someone said those vows to me

“They enjoy being evil,” Aly said through his teeth. “I wish I knew why. That way, at least, I could follow through with life knowing that there is a reason.”

I wish I knew why, too.

This is too sweet 🥰

Something is coming to steal Alysaundre’s happiness. Either Demetre is going to find out he was freed or he’s going to get kidnapped by slave catchers.

How devastating is it to know despite the hope that’s filling me as Alphonse prepares to rescue Danielle’s family we know how Danielle’s story ends?

Papa’s letter is written so beautifully, Malika was in her bag when she wrote this book.

This is some of the best historical fiction I’ve ever read. Malika expertly crafts the world of 1850s Lafayette, LA.

So much struggle in this book goes back to Ain’t I A Woman by bell hooks: Alysaundre taking the brunt of beatings and still not being able to protect his family, Papa being sold away when trying to protect Danielle from being raped by their master, Etiennette blaming Danielle for being impregnated by the master…

This is a hard perspective to read, but I recognize some degree of delusion and dissociation was necessary to exist in those times. Plus Danielle is only 17.