This book sharpened my perspective on racial inequality. I highly recommend for boomers as well as millennials.

A beautifully written atmospheric family saga. Mostly character driven and a little slow at times, but Jesmyn Ward created such intricately detailed the character arcs that I could not get enough.

This was a beautiful read. This was my first Jesmyn Ward but will reading her other books soon. Highly reccomend this one.

Loved this book! So glad that it received attention and press. Looking forward to reading other books by this author.

Absolutely beautiful novel. It's a slow build. But, you buckle up and go on the journey with this family. It is a story about one family's survival against all odds. I love the bit of magical realism here and there that did not feel over the top. It's one of the novels that you finish and just take a moment to pause and reflect. Jesmyn Ward did not dissapoint!

I enjoyed this book immensely. Please view my video review for further details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qgbchUJEgU

In her third novel, Jesmyn Ward portrays a poor family in rural Mississippi. The family is African-American. Living in the house are the grandfather, who is the patriarch of the family and his wife. Their daughter, Leonie, lives there off and on, disappearing for days on end either working or doing drugs. Her two children, Jojo and Kayla, regard the grandparents as their parents and have little regard for Leonie. Finally, their father, Michael, shows up occasionally. Michael comes from the white family that lives next door. He and Leonie haven't married but have the two children. They can't live with each other or without each other and have a tumultuous relationship. As the book opens, Michael is about to be released from prison.

Jojo is thirteen and trying to learn all he can about being a man. His hero is his grandfather and he tries to be just like him. His white grandfather will have nothing to do with him even living as closely as he does due to Jojo and Kayla's black heritage. Jojo learns to be a man though stories. There are the stories of his uncle, Given, who was killed by a member of Michael's family. There are the stories that his grandfather tells of him time at Parchman prison, back when it used the prisoners as the next thing to slaves. There are the stories about the boy his own age caught up in Parchman, Richie, and his relationship to Jojo's grandfather.

Jesmyn Ward has given the reader an intimate look into the lives of this family and the hurt and love still caught up in racial relations in the United States. Most of the individuals in the novel are just doing the best they can to get by, often hurting those around them as they try to make a life they can live with. It is an indictment not only of the state of racial relations but the poverty that exists in the United States and that most people have little experience of. This book was a winner of the National Book Award, (Ward's second win of this prize) and a New York Times Top 10 Notable Book. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

This book is good, heavy, shocking. And apparently, divisive. It seems that the biggest divide between readers of this novel stem from the reader's preference or disdain for magical realism/southern gothic tales.

To me (for the most part), a reader's enjoyment comes down to a novel's assumed conceit and whether it delivers said conceit festooned with the types of writing the reader prefers. And for me, this novel mostly worked. With so many dysfunctional family drama novels to read, how does one choose among them? Perhaps it's the types of things that set it apart. In this instance, the otherworldly aspects set it apart.

It falls flat for some, ruins it for others. But I don't need a novel to always parallel life to a perfect 'T.' The mystical and magical moments are more than welcome in the canon, I think. And the section showing the interaction with the police -- I am pretty sure I held my breath the entire time. That part was worth the read alone.

This is an excellent story. It is told from the point of view of a mixed race teen, his black mother, and the ghost of a boy killed in prison. It is about poverty and race and all of the prejudices those things bring with them. I thought the insight into the lives and beliefs and thoughts of the characters was incredibly insightful. This author is great at telling the stories of the people that she grew up with. She does well serving as their voice. This is a culture that I wouldn't normally encounter in a place in my own country that I would likely never have occasion to visit. Reading her books helps me to feel enlightened, whether it's fiction or non-fiction. Her stories cast light on a situation that would not normally have a voice. And she does a great job which causes me to keep coming back and reading her books.

this is one of the hardest books to review for me.
i really loved the writing in this book, it had something unique and special, sucked me into the story and made me want to continue on reading as long as possible.
I also enjoyed the idea of the book - poverty, racism, drug addiction, prison... it all sounded fantastic. And combined with that writing? It sounded like the perfect book.
But somehow throughout this book i stated to feel as if something big was missing for me so that i could actually love it.
I am unsure what it was exactly.
Maybe my dislike and disconnect to the characters, or my disbelieve for some things, maybe the magical realism elements that i always seems to have issues with in books.
There was just something that didn't click with me.

Overall its a good book and i will defiantly pick something else up by this author, but sadly this specific book and i tried very hard but couldn't find the perfect middle for each other to fall in love.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by author Jesmyn Ward tells the story of the struggles of an African American family in modern day rural Mississippi. Thirteen-year-old Jojo and his sister, Kayla, are being raised by their grandparents. Their grandmother is in the last stages of cancer and their grandfather (Pop) is coping with the farm while caring for her and the kids. Their mother, Leonie, addicted to methamphetamines, drops in and out of their lives. Their white father is about to be released from prison and Leonie decides to take the two children along to meet him resulting in a road trip marked by the presence of another addict, Kayla's car sickness, unexpected and unwanted side trips, and Jojo's constant alertness to any dangers as well as protection of his toddler sister from their mother's seeming indifference to their needs.

It is no surprise that Sing, Unburied Sing won the National Book Award for Fiction and was named as one of the top books of 2017. It is a beautifully written novel with lyrical prose and complex and interesting characters. The narration is split between Jojo and Leonie and later in the book, Richie, a ghost from Pop's past. Jojo is certainly the most likeable of these characters but Leonie is, by far, the most complex - on the surface, she is selfish and needy and indifferent to anyone but Michael, her white lover, and often showing almost hatred towards Jojo who, in turn, dislikes and distrusts her. But in her internal dialogue, we see a more nuanced character, one who has never gotten over the death of her brother; who knows that her actions and reactions to her son are wrong; who is willing to take an action that will aid her mother, knowing how it will likely look to the rest of the family; and who is aware of her obsession for Michael and wishes she were able to give just a little of that love to her children but knows that she can't. This is also a tale about how memory and the past colours the presence, that the dead are never fully gone from our lives but are rather there 'pulling the weight of history behind them'. These ghosts of the past are there in Pop's stories about his time in the notorious Parchman prison and what happened to Richie, something that remains a mystery until the very end of the story; in Leonie's inability to let go of what happened to her brother; in the actual ghosts that Jojo, Kayla, and Leonie can see; and in the road trip which makes it clear that the injustices and inequalities of the past has never gone away even if we want to believe they have.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

Sing unburied Sing is a heart wrenching gorgeous novel.A novel that takes you into the heart of a family past&present .Issue of race black against white lyrically written highly recommend.
#netgalley.#scribner.

Family relationships
Leonie has had very little impact on her children's lives, leaving the responsibility of raising them to the her own parents. As a result, Jojo had to grow up very fast and take on more "manly" responsibility than he should have to at only 13 years old. The most touching aspect of this book is the close-knit relationship between Jojo and Kayla. Jojo's little sister is only 2 years old and he is fiercely protective of her because his mother has never really known how to be a parent to them. The only tenderness they've been shown comes from their Mam and Pop, and Jojo shoulders the main parenting tasks with Kayla because he feels it's his job as a big brother to do that. Jojo also discovers that he inherited a sort of supernatural power from his Mam, which brings him closer to nature and also to see ghosts. As this power develops, we see Jojo mature even more with this new understanding about how the world works, hearing the full story of the old Parchman prison.

When Michael comes back, he meets his daughter for the first time, but he has missed out on formative years in Jojo's life. Neither of his children have any interest in forming a relationship with their father, understandably. The overall dysfunction of Leonie and Michael's relationship, with each other and with drugs, reflects in the children's aversion to both parents.

Two Perspectives
I liked that Ward gave two different views on the novel's action and the overall situation between Leonie and Jojo, even if it was incredibly hard to read from a drug abuser's perspective. I have a hard time relating to someone who justifies actions that are clearly wrong, and that was all Leonie did. Her toxic relationship with Michael, and her addiction to hard drugs, make her a negligent mother who has never shown any true affection towards her children. Jojo instinctively takes on parental responsibilities his mother lacks because he knows she'll never realize her own faults.

Overall Thoughts
This book left me feeling like I had just read something impactful and important to read. Jojo's story kept me riveted to every page. The magical realism introduced by the ghosts and Mam's familial powers added another layer of intrigue that's different from anything I have read before. Jojo starts to gain his supernatural abilities after he turns 13 at the start of the novel and I could never predict what his next discovery would be (connecting with animals, seeing ghosts, etc.), so it was always surprising in a great way.

I really enjoyed this novel and will encourage anyone who's interested to read it too!

Katie x

This book is necessary. This book is beautiful. This book is loved and needed and heartrending.

A beautifully human story that we all should be reading right now. It's a book I'm proud to bring in my classroom. It's a book I'm proud to read aloud excerpts of to my students. It's a book that won't stay on my shelves.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Jojo, 13, lives with his grandparents and little sister in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. His mom, Leonie, sometimes lives there, too, but is just as often out using drugs. When they find out Jojo's dad is about to be released from jail, Leonie insists they drive up to Parchman to pick him up. When they get to Parchman, Jojo finds the ghost of a boy his Pop was incarcerated with years ago, who is looking for a way to move on.

The first half of this book felt grounded in reality, while the second half veered off into paranormal/fantasy. Ward has a gift for words; she is a beautiful storyteller. I did find the book a bit slow to read just because it was hard to read about the difficult lives of the characters.

Wicked, cruel stepmothers are a common enough trope, but literary examples of bad mothers are harder to find. Which makes Leonie, in Jesmyn Ward's National Book Award-winning Sing, Unburied, Sing, a relatively rare creature. In her late 20s, she is the mother of two children, adolescent Jojo and toddler Kayla, with her longtime boyfriend Michael. Leonie is also a frequent user of drugs, with a special fondness for the meth that sent Michael to prison. The kids are mostly raised by her parents in rural southern Mississippi, though their other grandparents have never even met them...you see, Leonie is black, Michael is white, and his parents are racists who helped cover up the murder of Leonie's brother, Given, when they were in high school, by one of Michael's cousins.

When Michael is released early, Leonie loads her kids in the car and drives to come get him. It's the same prison, Parchman, where her own father, River, once served time in his youth, and his past there becomes important because Michael isn't the only passenger they pick up: they're also joined by the ghost of a teenager named Richie. Only Jojo and Kayla can see Richie, who Jojo's heard about in his grandfather's stories, and when the family arrives back home, Jojo agrees to confront his grandfather to find out how Richie died.

There's a lot more to it, and that's actually one of the highlights of this novel: it is rich in atmosphere. Ward deftly weaves together the stark realities of poverty, drug addiction, how parents and children can fail each other, and the way the justice system works for the white power structure and against people of color. She brings certain threads to the forefront at times, then others, but always keeps the others in sight in the background. She also does beautiful work of characterization, making Jojo an incredibly sympathetic and compelling protagonist, showing Leonie's selfishness and the damage it causes but creating her as a deeply flawed human rather than a one-note villain, conveying the decency and strength of River and his wife Philomene, doing their best in a world that has not done right by them.

But though it does some things incredibly well, it stumbled hard (at least, for me) in other ways. The most pronounced was that it sets itself in the literary tradition of Beloved...and then doesn't live up to Toni Morrison's masterpiece. You can't write a story about the stain of institutionalized racism that prominently features ghosts and the mysterious death of a child without knowing that you're going to be compared to Beloved, and if you're going to go there, you better bring it. It wasn't brought. Ward's choice to use Richie as the most prominent ghost in the narrative rather than Given (who Leonie sees only when high), an actual member of the family whose perspective could have been used to give more context to Leonie's youth, is inexplicable to me. I never got invested in Richie, which meant that when Ward brought her threads together for a set of final climactic scenes that are supposed to pack a huge emotional punch, it felt overwrought and unearned rather than profound and cathartic. It has merit, and it's not unworth reading, but if you haven't read Beloved, read that and skip this.

Great writing and great story! This book should be added to list of books taught in high school English classrooms.

It’s the last Saturday of the month, which means it’s Give a Sh*t Book Club time! This month our pick is Sing, Unburied, Sing by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. It’s a road trip novel sprinkled with magical realism set in rural Mississippi. Now that I read back over it, that description makes it sound slapstick and whimsical, but I can assure you it’s much, much darker than that.

February is a short month, and even though I started the book with what I thought was plenty of time, it’s so heavy it took me quite a while to read and even longer to process all my thoughts and feelings afterwards.

Leonie will certainly be a polarizing figure. I’m sure a lot of readers will hate her for the way she continually fails her children, and wow does she fail them awfully, but I thought Ward did an amazing job of illustrating her inner turmoil. After all, addicts are narcissists. Not only was she always selfishly pursuing her next high, but every time she even thought about breaking her pattern and doing the right thing for her children, she would look at Jojo’s face and see his disappointment and anger and melt back into herself. It was easier to numb herself from the pain of knowing that her thirteen-year-old son was a more stable adult than she was than to try to swim against the tide and be someone better. Jojo broke my heart, of course. I’m not sure what else to say about him.

I thought the magical realism elements were very well done, especially the ghost of Richie. When we finally find out the ending to his story, it adds such weight to the family’s history. I also loved how this was a book that was about Parchman prison without ever really looking at it head-on. The present-day characters are there for only the briefest of scenes, and then it’s back on the road.

There’s so much to process with this book. Ultimately I’m glad I read it. (Although I will say, if I had known how many viscerally disgusting scenes there would be, I might have chickened out on it. I skipped the opening animal slaughter scene entirely, and couldn’t get over how much barfing there was! My squeamish sensibilities were stretched to the limit!)

What did you think of Sing, Unburied, Sing? Comments are open below. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Completely loved this. Beautiful writing and really well-embodied characters (even the non-embodied ones!). Worthy of all its accolades, and seared into my memory.

Jesmyn Ward just has a way with words. Her book Sing, Unburied, Sing is a fantastic, streamlined novel, there's not a word out of place and the characters are just as rich as the language. What a treat.