What is it about me and the books of Jesmyn Ward? Both Salvage the Bones and now Sing, Unburied, Sing appear to be just the types of books that I would really enjoy. Both books are not just well written but beautifully written, with a deep South setting and ruminations on race and family, love and truth and lots more. For some reason these books do not work for me and I can't figure out why.

The majority of this book takes place on the road. A road trip with a relatively young mother, Leonie her thirteen yr old son, JoJo, her younger daughter Kayla and a friend from work, Misty. They're off on the Mississippi roads to Parchman Prison to pick up Michael, the kids white father. Along the way and back the trip is fraught with family tensions and a very stressful and tense-filled encounter with a racist Mississippi police officer. There's also ghosts or frequent visions of Leonie's deceased brother, Given as well as a young inmate in Parchman, (who was in with Jojo's Paps) and has frequent contact with Jojo. These visions took up more than just a little part of this book and was one big reason that I didn't care too much for it. The best part of this book was the loving relationship between family members particularly Jojo and Kayla amidst the poverty and drug induced stupors of Leonie and a Michael.

I do, indeed, want to enjoy Jesmyn Ward's books. She's frequently lauded by people whose knowledge of books I respect quite a book. However, it would be disingenuous or unfair of me to give a review that's contrary to how I really feel. Quite possibly I'll read her first novel or maybe check to see if she's written short stories or essay's.

Heartbreaking and visceral, Sing, Unburied, Sing is an emotional journey, deep into the South and the roots tangled and burrowing down. This story is a melancholy cacophony of lamentations underneath the simple story of a thirteen-year-old boy and his dysfunctional parents, covering a rather short period of time with the main narrative. This story reaches inside, grabs hold, and pulls you along for its tragic journey.

Ward's writing is a soothing comfort of symphonic words for most of the book. Other books, delivering this amount of prose-laden narration, simply push too far and get swallowed up—increasingly verbose, waxing poetic. Southern books can often fall into that trap of featuring so much atmosphere that they drown in their own oceans of metaphors, similes, and lyrical and heady language, but Sing, Unburied, Sing, beautifully sad and inherently Southern, manages to keep its head above water.

What can i say..this book was a hit. This book was very well written. I love how it focused on the the main characters views and perspectives of the situations at they unfolded. I do not want to provide a spoiler review as this book is yet to be on shelves. Jesmyn Ward did a great job showing spiritual views and where a persons focus should be at any given moment. This is my first review and I hope to have many more. This book will be a hit as her previous work shows she is focused on her path.

Adult responsibility should not consume the life of a thirteen year old. Jojo's family lives in poverty along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Once Jojo had a mama (Leonie) who attended to him and watched TV with him. He stopped calling her mama after she started snorting crushed pills. His father, Michael, is jailed in Parchman farm, The Mississippi State Penitentiary.

Jojo has a dual role as surrogate parent to toddler sister Kayla and as future head of household. He is asked to help grandfather (Pop) slaughter a goat. Grandmother (Mam) is dying of cancer. Jojo simply has too much on his plate.

Upon Michael's impending release from Parchman, Leonie plans a road trip, with kids in tow, to pick him up. Jojo, however, has tried to erase the image of Leonie and Michael's fights. The memory persists and Jojo, with Kayla clinging to him, is an unwilling traveler.

Weaving through the story are ghosts from the past. When Leonie gets high, her dead brother Given appears, providing comfort. Jojo channels the ghost of Richie, a young boy who served time in Parchman with Pop when Pop was wrongly accused of harboring a fugitive. Will Pop tell Jojo the full story of Richie's prison experience and subsequent demise?

A multitude of underlying currents run through this tome. The principals deal with poverty, racial profiling, lack of parenting skills, drug abuse and the supernatural. "Sing, Unburied, Sing" by Jesmyn Ward is a rich, distinctive contribution to American literature.

Thank you Scribner and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Sing, Unburied, Sing".

A dark, but touching story set in Mississippi.

Joseph, Jojo and his 3 year old sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Their mom, who comes and goes, is the drug addicted Leonie who sees visions of her dead brother Given when she's high. His death is haunting. Meanwhile, Mam is dying of cancer and Pop is trying to be a good father to his grandchildren. His stories of life on Parchman farm, a state prison, shows us the horrors he has seen and at the same time, how he never really left.

Throughout, the relationship of Jojo and Pop and Jojo and Kayla give hope that things can be better. It is a rich story, and it really makes you think about privilege and the glue that holds people together. How sometimes, people can only do the best they can with what they are given and how they are able to cope.

I read everything Jesmyn Ward I could get my hands on last year, so when I saw that "Sing, Unburied, Sing" was available on NetGalley (thank you for the advanced copy!) I jumped at the opportunity to dive in. Ward has quickly become my favorite storyteller.

This particular story is filled with family, racism, substance abuse, death, injustice, and ghosts. It is centered in the south―Mississippi, where Ward herself is from and where most of her bodies of work take place. There are three different voices heard: Leonie, her son JoJo, and (from a story inside of a story) Richie, a young boy Leonie's father befriends while he is serving a jail sentence for something he didn't do. JoJo and his younger sister, Kayla, are for the most part raised by their grandparents Pap and Mam. Leonie has bailed on her parental duties, but gives almost 100% towards her relationship to her children's father who, coincidentally, is being released from jail as our story begins.

I love the way "Sing, Unburied, Sing" is intricately weaved with ghosts. When Leonie is escaping reality by getting fucked up, her dead brother Grave joins her. Later, Richie shows up asking a favor of JoJo; he needs to know the details of his own death. Mam knows that those that die an "unexpected" or "violent" death are the lost souls that become ghosts. She wishes more than anything to see for herself and it isn't until her final moments that her children/grandchildren are able to share their "gift."

Ward has a way with words unlike any author I've read. She's honest, real, and her words mean something. I feel for her characters. I can picture them. I know them because they are real people.

I adored Ward's nonfiction books, so when I saw she was writing fiction I almost lost my mind. And for good reason - this book captivated me, wrung out my emotions, and left me thinking about it for the last several days.

Loved this book. The characters were very well developed.. I adored some of them (Jojo, Pop, Kayla, and Mam). Others I intensely disliked. The descriptions in this book were so clear that I could actually see it. I have never read anything by this author before but plan to seek out her other work.

"Sing, Unburied, Sing" presents a way of life that will be unfamiliar to many of its readers. A life in which addiction rules and heartbreak abounds. Jesmyn Ward presents themes and ideas, however, that are as relevant today as they ever have been; racism, injustices in the prison system, police treatment of minorities, and how the past shapes the present. This is the story of a family living in poverty along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

Through multiple perspectives, Ward tells us the story of Jojo and his toddler sister Kayla who are being raised by their grandparents, Mam and Pop. Jojo's mother, Leoni, is often absent and frequently high. When Leoni gets a call that Michael, Jojo and Kayla's father, is going to be released from prison, she packs the kids up and head's out onto the road to pick him up on his release day. Jojo, who has just turned 13, is less than excited to be reacquainted with the stranger that is his father.

Leoni is haunted by visions of her deceased brother, and Jojo is haunted by a young boy Pop knew in his youth during his time in prison. Ward carries these figures elegantly throughout the story, and they become central to Leoni and Jojo's fates. Ward doesn't hold back in her depiction of prison as slavery, and this storyline comes to a truly heart wrenching and tragic end. This book is wrought with pain and sadness, and I know I will be thinking about Jojo for a while.

This was my first time reading Jesmyn Ward, and I certainly understand her success. She has keen insights and a strong voice, and I am looking forward to reading her backlist.

I could not finish. It is simply not the style of writing I like. I will still suggest others check it out, because it is a good story as far as I read of it at least.

Jesmyn Ward's latest Sing, Unburied, Sing truly sings, a triumphant song at that. It is an assured book that's haunted characters will haunt its reader long after they set the book down. Mournful and sad, it still manages to convey light and hope. A slim book with big ideas, gracefully touches on race (interracial relationships, white privilege, police brutality) , how prison in many ways is slavery with another name, and how the specter of our past tend to linger with us (be that not listening to our mom's sex ed talk, our brother's murder, or simply that persistent reminder of past failings with our children).