I loved this. It was an interesting story woven together with beautiful writing. It flips from two perspectives: just before the civil war and just after. I thought the focus on these two women was very well done. It was focused yet enlightening. What's more, I loved how the characters had depth. Everyone you love or hate will inevitable make a mistake or show themselves not that bad. For that, I love it.

Rating Break Down
Writing Style: 9/10
Plot: 8/10
Characters: 9/10
Ending: 8/10
Engagement: 8/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Comprehension: 8/10
Pacing: 8/10
Desire to Reread: 5/10
Special: 5/10
Calculated Rating: 3.96/5
Final Rating: 4/5
Note, each rating is weighted based on personal importance to calculate a final score that is rounded to the nearest half.

Opening the story of a young black female slave who was the daughter of a southern cotton plantation slave in the 1850's, Rue learned her mother's skills by rote if not by heart. She witnessed and experienced the cruelty of slave owners and members of his family. Freedom came at a very high price for the blacks due to the hatred of KKK groups and poor whites. Living with so many secrets, Rue tried desperately to hide the freed plantation slaves who stayed to do the same things they did when under the whip and threats of the time of slavery.
This book is highly recommended for YA learning the history of the time of slavery in America.

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora is a multi-layered masterpiece! Even after weeks that has gone by since I read this book, that is pretty much my over all thoughts. Thank you, Random House for this gifted copy.

Conjure Women is a historical fiction set before, during, and after the Civil War, in the rural south. A group of former plantation slaves try to readjust to their new freedom as one member of the community, Rue - a healing woman - is accused of using witchcraft to plague the children.

Along with a beautiful cover, of which the meaning is revealed throughout the course of the novel, this book has an exceptional storyline that discusses crucial topics such as race, slavery, gender, social class, health, faith, and familial relationships. Every scene is ripe with symbolism and metaphoric meaning, which to me, as a former English major, made the plot so much more interesting. But for readers who aren't interesting in decoding writing, I can see how that wouldn't necessarily be ideal!

Initially, I wasn't totally sold on the nonlinear plot of this story. It frequently shifts around in the timeline, going from pre-Civil War, to during wartime, to the aftermath - sometimes not even following any organized plot at all. But after a while, I actually found this structure to be quite effective and interesting. It permitted Afia Atakora to reveal crucial plot points in key moments and then follow them up with flashback scenes that added more context and depth to the storyline.

Overall, I found this to be an extremely thought-provoking novel with a surprising ending. A lot of the time, I find that I can guess the ending of novels, but that wasn't the case with this one. It was fresh, original, and invigorating. I highly recommend this read.

Wow. One of my favorite reads of 2020. A story of plantation life and at its center the healer and an enigmatic preacher. The beliefs of the slaves are tested as a sickness spreads through the property. The power of hoodoo beliefs vs. The Bible. Memorable characters with Rue the conjure woman being a favorite. Some fall in love, some don't and they all try to survive as the North comes. And then the KKK. A great read covering a lot of ground and evoking much emotion.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

This is a gorgeous debut and I look forward to seeing more of what Atakora writes in the future.

Focusing on two African American women, Rue and May Belle, during the Civil War and in the turbulent times just following the North's victory, Conjure Women is at its heart a celebration of women's work and women's roles in society. May Belle and Rue are healers for their community, particularly helping the women of the plantation to give birth to their babies. But while May Belle was largely celebrated for her talents, Rue falls under suspicion when she helps to deliver a baby with scaly, light skin and jet black eyes. The novel explores intersections of magic, faith, and healing through the community's reaction to baby Bean. Race is of course another element of this book, especially in Rue's relationship with the slave master's daughter, Varina.

I loved the character development in this book, particularly when it came to Rue and her relationships with the other members of the former plantation. While some events of the book are far-fetched and magical, the characters' reactions felt real. In addition, the plot itself was engaging and kept me guessing with the mystery elements that had been added in. I appreciate the interweaving of African and African American folklore throughout the story as well. There are certainly parts that were difficult to read, but any story that has slavery as an element is going to have those moments if it is being truthful to the horrors of that period.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It reminded me a lot of The Revisioners, which I read earlier this year, both in setting and in themes. Yet this book succeeded in ways that The Revisioners did not for me, and for that I was grateful.

TW: miscarriage; child lost during birth; racial slurs; racism; violence

A narrative that takes you through the Civil War and post-slavery period in the (post) Confederate South from the perspective of two women known for healing and supporting their community in sickness and childbirth.

The contrasts of slavery and freedom, white and black dynamics, religion versus curses and mysticism, life and death, and more resonate throughout the book. I was absorbed into Miss May Belle (mother) and Rue's (daughter) narrative. Afia Atakora's storytelling kept me engaged and reflecting about what it would have been like at a time of so much change.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

Conjure Women is a work of historical fiction, and a debut novel for this author, who is certainly very skilled. The book is rich in symbolism and piercing social commentary. The complicated plot follows the connection between three women in particular. The enslaved mother & conjurer, her daughter and the white woman who owns them. It explores the ways that relationships between women, between masters and the enslaved can be both intimate and bitter.

I didn’t rate the book higher because I had difficulty connecting to the main character, and the jumps in time back and forth made piecing the plot together a little more work than usual. Lingering confusion over what is happening can take you out of a story and I think that’s what influenced my feelings about the book. It is a good book, and probably deserves a deeper reading than I was able to put into it at this time.

I don’t know about any of you, but living in the time we are makes it harder for me to concentrate. I need something to take me out of this current reality, full of fears about coronavirus, being an essential worker and all the worries that come with it. I know you’re all probably feeling much the same. I do hope, however, that this book doesn’t suffer from being released at a time when we are maybe not as ready to read it. I think it deserves to be studied much more closely.

Emancipation.
Afia Atakora's debut novel opens with the ominous sound of a baby's cry. It's in her dutiful response to that cry that we meet Rue, a second-generation healer and recently freed slave tending to a post-Emancipation town in an unnamed part of the American South. The town is the home of former slaves, their "prosperity," as one character says. But all is not well here. From the beginning, the setting evokes much of the complicated history of slavery in America and the thwarted promise of freedom in the Reconstruction era. In the tradition of Toni Morrison's Beloved and more recently Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing, Conjure Women largely uses magic and motherhood to explore the reverberating effect of slavery on all of the people and communities it irrevocably binds together.

One of the primary questions the novel asks is this: even in the time of freedom, who is really free? And in what ways must we "conjure" freedom for ourselves? Rue's mother May Belle is afforded a certain level of status and freedom even before the war because of her magic and healing powers. We learn that "…because she kept their property from dying, white folks let her have it. They let her have her own way." This meant a special dispensation from field work and greater access to things like blankets and soap. And May Belle always seems to find what she needs even if she has to create it for herself. We are told that "...if Miss May Belle insisted on a thing, she'd have it, as good as willing it into existence." However, this power and this "freedom" ultimately do not protect her or those she loves from sexual violence and death.

Interestingly, freedom doesn't protect all of the white characters in the novel either. Varina is the young mistress of the plantation, and the continual impudence and impetuousness of her childhood years seems to demonstrate how much freedom she has. Though she is told on numerous occasions that her father wouldn't like if she were found spending too much time with Rue and the other slaves, Varina routinely visits the slave quarters and ventures off into the woods alone with Rue. Varina's privilege even extends to dictating the freedom of others. In anticipation of her marriage, she has Rue and Sarah, another young slave, signed over to her as her personal property. But Varina's freedom proves limited to the extent to which she can remain a "proper lady." After her coming out party, which she makes Rue watch from the inside of a latched chest, Varina is raped by an unnamed "gentleman." She suffers the assault in relative silence and tells no one afterward because in doing so she would become a "ruined" woman—stripped of her status, dignity and many of her other freedoms.

Similary, Rue is bound by her status in the world and by her role as the conjure woman's daughter, as she is expected to follow in her mother's footsteps. Even after the war and the onset of de jure freedom, Rue is still bound. Early on we are told, "Freedom had come after the war for all black folks. All excepting Rue, she felt, for she was born to healing and stuck to it for life. And stuck to this place." It's in the time of freedom that readers come to understand how relative a term it truly is. Though she has done much to try to safeguard her town, Rue struggles to find happiness in a role and in a life she did not choose for herself. And while there are genuine moments of "magic," the novel demonstrates that ultimately real "conjuring" occurs, as it often does in life, in much more familiar and ordinary ways. It manifests in love and choice and money. Young Rue is fascinated by the silver dollars her mother receives for her work. We learn that "Miss May Belle had used to turn coin on hoodooing. As a slave woman she'd made her name and her money by crafting curses." And later, when Rue witnesses her mother turn a fellow enslaved woman into a bird, a true moment of magic, what makes the biggest impression on Rue is that her mother sprinkles those same silver dollars in the river bed so that they can light the woman's way to the North.

Conjure Women is a novel rooted as much in its place as its people. It is steeped in natural imagery, linking (in ways as complicated as the history of black people in the Americas) those enslaved, and later dispossessed people, to the places they inhabit. These spaces are treacherous, barren and haunted, yet they are also restorative and transformational. These dichotomies are one of the hallmarks of the book, creating a kind of undulating suspense and release, hope and loss, elation and melancholy that ultimately reaffirms what the characters in the novel have always known: despite their magic, this life and this work could never have a fairy tale ending. But one thing is certain: that Atakora is able to bring together these myriad characters, plotlines and themes so masterfully is magic in and of itself.

A great story! Beautifully and creatively woven and kept me going and on my toes the entire time. This book is wet Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Water Dancer wanted to be. The perfect combination of American slavery history with mysticism and magic but also eerily realistic. It came back full circle and just made sense! Beautiful

Healing is the family business in Conjure Women. This was my second 5/5 rating this year. This novel does a good job of nursing you through a historically dark time with its beautiful storytelling. The story is broken into two time periods, Rue's youth under the tutelage of her mother May Belle, who is the plantation healer and Rue as a young adult becoming a healer in her own right. The generational baggage was so real, Rue and May Belle reminded me of the women in my life because of their protectiveness, spirituality, and secrets. If you're a fan of Jesymn Ward, Toni Morrison, and Angela Flournoy this is the book for you!


Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the advanced reader's e-copy.

This generational saga, set on a slave plantation in the south, follows Miss May Belle, the wise midwife and conjurer; her protégé daughter Rue; and Varina, the slave owner's daughter, and Rue's childhood playmate. Each woman's acts of conjuring sets in motion a turn of events that cause happiness, deception, or death. This well-developed plot captivates readers with a colorful cast of characters and tales about the horrors of slavery, the matters of motherhood, heartache, and intimacy between lovers, and a slave community torn between the Christian faith and Hoodoo practices. Afia Atakora has a stunning writing style. Readers who enjoy historical fiction with strong female-driven characters will appreciate the novel's puzzle-piecing plot that's inspired by records derived from the Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.

I enjoyed this novel very much. The storylines and character development was well done. It goes back and forth between slavery times and the immediate years after the Civil War. You truly got to understand each character and tap in to their history. The ending chapters were my favorite because the plot twists were unexpected.

This was difficult for me to get through. I think flashing back and forth so quickly between pre and post war threw me off and I struggled to keep track of everything. The premise was interesting and I liked the descriptive language.

CONJURE WOMEN by Afia Atakora - Thanks to @netgalley @randomhouse for the advanced copy of this book!

Rue is a third-generation conjure woman: a healer and midwife to the black community on the Southern land of a former plantation. After the birth of a strange baby and the appearance of a new sickness in the community, people begin to distrust Rue’s traditional ways and focus on the new power of a traveling preacher. Is their disbelief well-founded? What has Rue sacrificed in order to keep their newly-free community safe? Alternating between perspectives in “FREEDOMTIME” and “SLAVERYTIME,” this historical fiction novel reveals the lives of Rue and her mother, May Belle, and tells the story of their precarious power and freedom.

This book was such a well-crafted slow burn. A seemingly straight-forward plot slowly unfurls to reveal a complex web of secrets, lies, and decisions, and the driving forces and unintended consequences of each of these choices. Through a story of conjure, we see how each person must grapple with the forces of hope, trust, loneliness, and manipulation to protect themselves and those that they love.

During COVID-19, I’ve struggled with reading long books, books about illness, and sad books. This book is all three, and I loved it! When I started reading CONJURE WOMEN, I knew it was going to be sad, but I did not know that a mysterious deathly illness was a major plot point of this novel. This is a very different take than any sort of apocalyptic novel, as it focuses more on Rue’s relationship with the effects of the illness, and it is not the sole focus of the book. There are large and small heartbreaks throughout the book, some extremely sad, and some wrapped up with a lot of perseverance and possibility.

Whether you think you want to read this book now or save it for a less chaotic moment in time, it is a beautifully written #ownvoices book that deserves our support. You can always put it on your shelf for later!!

First of all, that cover! It's so beautiful and was the first thing to draw me in. Pretty covers have a tendency to disappoint me, but Afia Atakora's writiing is nothing short of wonderful. And it's her debut! Very excited to see what this author comes up with next.

I won an advanced copy of Conjure Women through Netgalley and Goodreads, so I could share my review with you!

Healing and cursing run hand in hand in the world of Conjure Women. Miss Rue, and her mother Miss May Bell before her, have been in charge of caring for the for the people living on their plantation. Their duties have ranged from everything from delivering babies to imparting spells of harm. When Rue delivers one baby that comes out with strange, scaled skin and eyes like little black beans, she fears that a reckoning is upon the plantation. With this birth, the secrets and lies that have been festering beneath the surface of the town seem to edge toward the light, filling the people with fear and anger. Telling the story of three women bonded together by circumstance and conjuring, this book is set in two times-before and after the civil war- to fully capture the facets of Rue’s life.

You can get your copy of Conjure Women on April 7th from Random House Publishing!

Conjure Women is Afia Atakora’s debut novel, and I was absolutely stunned by the beautiful prose found within. The finesse with which she weaves elements of magic into her story is incredible, creating a fully believable world, where abnormal things occasionally happen. To me, Conjure Women was reminiscent of the great works of Toni Morrison, and could easily hold its own next to such classics.

My Recommendation-
If you are a fan of deep works of literary complexity, Conjure Women would be an excellent pick for your next read! Additionally, if you’re a fan of historical fiction, this book is unlike any other historical novel I’ve ever read. This book would be perfect for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coats, Coulson Whitehead and Toni Morrison!

Do you like reading Civil War or African American historical fiction? Are you interested in superstitions that can destroy or save or maybe in mysterious infectious diseases ravaging a community? Do you enjoy plots driven by slowly revealed secrets or by background facts revealed slowly over time? Do you like stories alternating between two memorable central characters? If so, look now for Afia Atakora’s cativating debut novel, Conjure Woman.

Atakora draws upon long phone conversations with her grandmother in Ghana and upon slave narratives collected during the 1930s by WPA workers, helping her with “voice and flavor, curses and cures.”
She skillfully divides Conjure Woman into five parts. Parts One and Two alternate between chapters titled “Slave Time” and “Freedom,” the former focusing on Miss May Belle, a conjure woman and midwife, and the latter focusing on Miss Maybelle’s daughter Rue. Part Three alternates between “Wartime” and “The Ravaging,” the later concerning an infectious fever causing children and some adults to sicken and sometimes die and resulting in the community’s placing the blame on two of its own members. Parts Four and Five juxtapose “Wartime” and “Promise,” “Wartime” and “Exodus,” the latter pair also including two additional chapters: “Surrender” and “Gilead.”

Along with Miss May Belle and Rue, some other major characters include Bruh Abel, an itinerant black preacher; Black Eyed Bean, a slave child believed to have been born under a curse; and elderly Mama Doe, whose own children and been torn from her but who raises parentless slave children and nurtures young Varina, plantation owner Marse Charles’ daughter and Rue’s childhood playmate.

A story of birth, death, and resurrection; white religion, black evangelism, and hoodoo superstitions; slave music and dancing, minstrel show entertainment; “haints” and forgery, treachery, love, and fierce devotion, despair and hope, Atakora’s Conjure Woman kept me up late at night, not wanting to close my iPad.

Thanks to Random House, NetGalley, and the author for providing an Advance Reader Copy.

ALL THE STARS! A highly entertaining and enjoyable debut I couldn’t put down! Conjure Women tells the story of three southern women before, during and after the Civil War. All three navigate through the politics of slavery, racism, war and the propriety’s of class in the Deep South during that time in history. The undercurrents of voodoo/hoodoo and a belief in haint’s are prevalent throughout giving this a haunted, spooky appeal that made this story come alive for me. From it’s first page I was quickly transported back in time to the Southern antebellum years.. to a plantation with hundreds of slaves working fields as far as the eye can see, to the dirt floored slave’s quarters, to their masters multiple white columned big house. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, sit back and relax a spell with Afia Atakora’s incredible debut. The old south as seen through the eyes of two female slaves and a plantation owners daughter.. surprising, unique and is honestly a breath of fresh air in this genre. Added to the very top of my “Best Books of the Year” list.

"𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘮𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘰; 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘢𝘳."⁣
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Conjure Women by Afia Atakora transports you to another place and time. This story follows the character of Rue, who is living on a southern plantation over multiple timelines pre-Civil War (slavery) and post-Civil War (freedomtide). It was very interesting and eye-opening to read from the perspective of a child growing up during these times, and then to experience through the narrator the buildup to the moment when freedom is granted. Rue's mother was a healer on the plantation, passing down her knowledge to her daughter who practices healing when her mother is no longer able to. When an illness (the ravaging) starts sweeping through the area, taking the lives of many children, Rue's abilities are questioned and challenged.⁣
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𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘳: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 Random House 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 Net Galley 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.⁣