Ours was a sweeping magical realism tale in the mid 1800s American south. Saint, a conjure woman, gathers a community of free blacks and free slaves with the goal of establishing a protected/hidden community north of St Louis. I was excited to read this story but ultimately found that there were so many characters, so many moving pieces, and it took so long to unfold that my interest waned as the page count mounted.

Ours was a great, long saga I dove into. I appreciated the magical elements and the character studies.

Phillip B Williams has crafted an epic story with so much depth. It is a long book that covers many characters, and at times I did find myself confused. However, the writing style and content was so beautiful. It reminded me of Toni Morrison. I really enjoyed reading this and can see myself revisiting it to get even more out of it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for this ARC.

This is a long, magical story about the mid 1800s annihilation of plantations. When trying to rescue people from the plantations to a safe haven, As things to dissolve around Saint, those she is trying to save are left vulnerable.

This one is long. The writing is wonderful. There are aspects of magical realism. There is the harsh reality of our history. There are strong characters. There is spirituality. There is so much more and it is all woven together beautifully.

This book is destined to win awards this year - fascinating characters with complex backgrounds, it's unlike any other book I've read.

The book Ours centers on a town of the same name whose residents are formerly enslaved Africans who are freed by a woman called Saint. Saint creates a conjure that projects the town and its residents by making it a hidden haven that is impenetrable to anyone who isn’t supposed to be there. The novel revolves around a cast of characters including residents of Ours and others that live in its periphery or exist in the past and future of the story’s characters. The novel isn’t heavy on plot; it's a character study of people navigating new found freedom and a past that continues to influence the present and future.

It took a long time for me to really settle into this book. This story has magical realism and fantasy elements; the line between reality and magic is blurry, time is fluid, and the past is always present but not always as memories. The bulk of the novel is set in the past (1800s) but glimpses into the past and future add to the impact of the story’s exploration of generational trauma, memory, and freedom.

The greatest impact of this novel for me is how effectively Williams uses magical realism and fantasy as a vehicle to portray generational trauma and the depth to which a person carries our ancestors and their experiences, both joyful and sorrowful, literally in our bodies and bones. The approach was a unique and meaningful way to explore how systems and structures seal our fate in so many ways and the impact the past can have on someone’s present but also how it can impact the future. This book was heavy and hard and took a significant amount of time for me to read but ultimately the investment was worth it. There is an underpinning of new beginnings and hope and an unwavering thread of existence.

The writing is beautiful. There were sections and passages that left me in complete awe. There were sections that I had to reread just to take in the magnificent prose. This book is an investment but it definitely pays off.

Thank you @Netgalley via Read it Now @VikingBooks

I selected this novel based on the synopsis, the beautiful cover, and the fact that the author is an award-winning poet. In my experience, something “magical” happens when poets write novels - the masterful handling of words and phrases, the imagery that takes the reader there, the introspective work to birth characters that a reader won’t soon forget. All that and more happened in Ours, a small town populated by recently freed enslaved Africans and protected from intruders with enchanted stones of an enigmatic conjurer named Saint. There is an ensemble cast that are fully formed complete with their individual struggles and talents. This novel is weighted (granted it’s well over 500 pages), but it is the challenges and interconnectedness of themes, situations, relationships that reflects the author’s genius as he allows the characters to grapple with the layered and complicated concepts of freedom, identity, love, abandonment, community, purpose, and independence.

I predict that Ours will be nominated and hopefully win literary awards; on many levels, it is a masterpiece.

This has been one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and it’s quite a force to be reckoned with. Remarkable and ambitious, 𝘖𝘶𝘳𝘴 is so rich and dense it has its own gravitational pull – reaching beyond the four decades in which the story takes place to create a liminal and radical reclamation of American Black History. The infusion of black folk mysticism and surrealism creates a strong through-line that can’t help but draw comparison to 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦, if it met up with Toni Morrison’s 𝘚𝘶𝘭𝘢. The cherry on top is that it’s all written in a profound and lyrical style of prose; perhaps unsurprisingly, being that it’s the debut novel written by a poet.⁣
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Many might find the length to be intimidating; but when even the first 10 pages are enough to demonstrate the singular voice and vision of an author, you know you’re in for something memorable.

Perhaps I was not in the right headspace to fully embrace this book. Ours is mostly set in the 1800's about a town of African-Americans north of St. Louis that is magically sealed off from outsiders. The premise and many of the characters were intriguing but it was long and detailed and I don't think I gave it the time that it deserved. (I have also always struggled with enjoying historical fiction with magical elements.)

I struggled with this book, and it took me forever to get even halfway through. Then I realized that it didn’t work for me as a cohesive novel, leaving me confused much of the time. Instead, I began approaching it as a series of short stories and character studies connected through a location, the hidden town of Ours, and a selection of characters. That worked much better for me, compensating for all the jumping around in the story. Once I did that, the book made much more sense.

This book is a work of historical fantasy that revolves around slavery and those freed from it. It covers a time span of roughly 200 years. I felt that it dragged in places because, I think, there’s too much going on, too many characters, and some themes that could have been deleted for the sake of improving the book. The book could easily have been 50 pages shorter as several parts felt like fillers, and in other parts it seemed that the author went off on tangents that didn’t add to the story.

There are important messages in the book. Among them is that slavery is decidedly bad, but freedom isn’t perfect, either; it still has problems and challenges. This is especially true when conjuring, spirits, demons, and other sorts of magic are involved. Also, there are different ways to be free, but they all come with a price, and even once freed, slavery never leaves you.

The chapters, and chapter sections, vary from very short and quick to quite long and bogged down. The story includes spirituality, slavery, freedom, and safety. There’s grief, conjuring, spirit possession, spirits, and zombies/walking dead. There’s love, suicide, mass murder, and self-imposed mutism. Emotions come to life and affect the weather. There’s also a fair amount of crude language used.

I think the author is gifted, and the writing was technically well executed. At times, the narrative was exquisitely poetic. The author gives the characters perfect voices, and the story had an appropriate tone. Despite this, the story still often dragged.

This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I’m just sorry that it was so difficult to get through.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I thank all involved for their generosity, but it had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest reactions to reading this book.

Historical fiction? Multigenerational epic? Magical realism? Fantasy? Harsh realism? Ours is a genre-bending, time-bending, mind-bending, must-read debut novel by poet Phillip B. Williams.

The book opens in the recent past with the surprising revival of a black teenager who had been lying dead several hours encircled by police tape after being shot dead in the street by police, residents of the hood standing nearby so that the boy won’t be alone, someone in the crowd shouting the dead boy’s name. Williams tells readers that the boy’s story didn’t begin here. It might have begun two centuries earlier when a mysterious woman founded a town on that spot where the teen was killed and resurrected, or it might have begun even earlier on the Apalachicola River or aboard a slave ship called Divider.

Readers will gradually learn these stories and many more, beginning with a dark-skinned woman, accompanied by a silent man, buying land north of St. Louis in 1834, gradually causing whites in the area to abandon their properties as increasing numbers of blacks arrive. Known to these people only as Saint, the woman has traveled plantation to plantation, using traditional conjuration to kill their masters, mistresses, and overseers, freeing the slaves and guiding them to a new home belonging only to them--a town aptly named Ours.
Promising freedom and safety, Saint protects Ours and its inhabitants from outsiders, again using conjuration. From time to time, her powerful but imperfect skills produce unintended results, threatening retribution from whites in the area or killing members of her own community. Residents of Ours come to realize that freedom doesn’t necessarily mean safety.

In turn, bringing a succession of residents to the forefront of readers’ attention, gradually introducing new characters, filling in back stories, moving back and forth through American history from distant past to near present, Williams portrays the African American experience, exploring the nature of freedom, its challenges, and the belief that there is no right way to be free.

Sometimes magical, sometimes brutally realistic even in its magic, Ours has already appeared on many prominent book club recommended lists, and many open-minded readers should embrace it. Sadly, it will almost certainly be condemned by others with some sure to suggest its banning from libraries. Even more reason to read it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Viking/Penguin Group for an advance egalley of this highly recommended first novel from poet Phillip B. Williams.

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Ours is a very special book. From the very first page you realize that you are about to read something you've never read before. The revolves around a town called Ours. It takes place in the 1800's and Ours is a place where black people can go once they are free from their slave owners. Bad things happen to people who own the slaves or try to make life difficult for them. There are lots of characters in this book. It's expected because the book is 592 pages long. That may scare soem readers from this book but let me tell you that will be missing one of the most amazing books of 2024. From it's stunning covers to the extradorinary lives you see pass throgh this book it just begs to be read by a wide readership. The author has dedicated a lot this book from the care he takes with each and every character. Please make sure to add this to your tbr pile as well as your bookclub. Thank you to Pantehon and Netgalley for the read.

I spent a long time with this book and perhaps should have spent even longer to catch every brilliant thing Williams is doing here. This is work, but well worth it work. This is the magical story of the town of OUrs and its inhabitants. We are introduced to a conjurer named Saint who takes down plantation owners to liberate the snlaved. She brings them to magically concealled town named Ours to plan down roots and flourish. But this isn't the utopia she hoped as cracks in the foundation form, outsiders come in, and the meaning of freedom is called into question. The exploration of freedom is what I loved most. The premise is fantastic, the writing is beautiful, AND this book has a wide scope and requires focus and attention.

'Ours' is a beautiful triumph of a novel that beautifully weaves multiple stories into one. Each narrative represents a different and unique character with their own intriguing storytelling. There are subtle moments of magical realism within it that amplify the novel. I absolutely loved it and its a extremely necessary read.

Probably 3.75 - 4 stars. Need time to reflect on this one. This book was a journey, and I wasn't always sure where it was going. I loved how it all tied together in the end, although I wish I had seen more follow through with Selah taking over the boy's body and him coming back to life. The writing is very poetic and I definitely think this will be a buzzy book this year. There were periods where this dragged a bit for me, but overall this was engaging, interesting, and original.

Ours’was located in Arkansas and Missouri, which were occupied by emancipated slaves. Many people had supernatural abilities.

The novel focuses on Saint who was known for her supernatural abilities. The story spends a large part of the novel with her. I’m a character driven reader, so I like to know what the character's roles were in the story. At times, I was left wondering of the importance of the community. I also wonder if their names were common to the community.

Thank you Philip b Williams, Penguin Random House, and Netgalley for the privilege of reading this novel.

I wanted to like this and kept trying to get into it but just couldn’t. Every time something interesting would happen I would think, “okay it’s about to get good” but it never happened for me. It felt slow moving. Maybe I’ll try again later. DNF at 32%.

Special thanks to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I had high hopes for this book because of the hype. It started off well and then had too much going on for me. If I'm going to read a book this long, every other page at least has to keep my attention or it's just a waste of time.

Too many storyline, characters, timeliness and a whole bunch of fluff. I couldn't finish. Who knows maybe it ended up amazing but not for me. I couldn't stick in there long enough to find out.

Ours was an amazing book that exceeded my expectations. Magical realism and historical fiction are two genres that I do not reach for often, and I was more intimidated due to the length of the book. It follows Saint who helped emancipate the people living in the town of Ours. For me, there were a lot of characters to follow which was a bit challenging even though they did all add to the story there were points where I felt lost. The prose in the book was beautiful and I found myself highlighting a lot of passages, especially towards the end of the book. The last few chapters solidified it as a four-star read for me, if it was a bit shorter I would've reviewed it higher.

Ours is an expansive novel, covering over four decades in the South, tracking the course of a protected community outside of St. Louis. Over the close to 600 pages, the reader is introduced to Saint, a conjurer who travels across plantations in the South, rescuing the enslaved, and bringing death and destruction upon the owners. She brings the individuals she freed to a town she is calling Ours, which, with protective spells, is truly hidden from the outside world. She envisions being able to protect Ours' residents from the hate and violence of the outside world. But what happens with cracks begin to appear with her protection? And is the closed-off Ours just another sort of prison to the residents?

This is a sweeping novel- many characters are introduced, including Joy who has killed her violent father, and after being discovered flees to Ours with Frances, someone who has a mysterious background similar to Saint. Relationships and friendships develop with unexpected pairs. Because of the magical elements, Ours may resonant with readers who enjoyed Jesmyn Ward's Let us Descend and Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Water Dancer. For me, I appreciated that the book kept revealing insight on characters up until the end, but the shear length of it made it a bit of a slog.

Thank you to Penguin Group Viking via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.