I appreciated getting to read this book, it had that element that I was looking for from this type of book. Barry Michael Cole has a strong writing style and thought the historical fiction element perfectly. I was engaged with the story and enjoyed the overall feel of this.

I found One Hundred Pearls to be one of the most compelling books I've read in recent years. I've read many non-fiction and fictional accounts of slavery in the American South but none that made me feel as if I was being spoken to directly by the main character Sadie whose story this is in the form of a memoir. From the description of her life in Gambia to the horrific emotional and physical turmoil caused by the abduction of her and her mother by members of a rival tribe, this story made me feel as if I was listening to an oral history of pre-American Civil War slavery. It is emotional, sad yet uplifting in how Sadie tells her story and the many people, White and Black, who affected her fate. I highly recommend this for YA readers who are prepared to read an unfiltered (though fictional) account of the life of a slave from her capture to her death at the age of 100. Also recommended for anyone interested in an unvarnished story of slavery in the South during the Revolutionary War period. Cole has done an excellent job of creating Sadie's voice and her story.

One Hundred Pearls is a story of unthinkable tragedy and loss which simultaneously shines brightly in a triumphant tale of a woman who survives a century of enslavement. Beginning in a village in Gambia in 1761, the eight-year-old, fictional Princess (her Pulaar name) is of royal descent, her father a renowned warrior. Captured by slave traders, along with her mother and many women of the tribe, she is herded onto a slave ship to America. Separated from her mother and purchased on the auction block, she is sent to a plantation in Alabama. Renamed Sadie, she defies all odds, living a grand one hundred years and writing her story indelibly into history, where she seems to embody the tragic history of slavery itself.

Sadie’s powerful story tugs our deeply humane emotions to the surface, seeking not to dwell solely on the physical savagery of slavery but its emotional devastation and intergenerational trauma. We are enraged and horrified, humbled and saddened. Sometimes we weep, sometimes we smile as Sadie embraces the strength of human spirit to endure the direst of circumstances and emerge with kindness and grace. Even as others show no mercy, she shows it to others, holding gatherings in the fields to bring God into lives filled with horror and unimaginable pain and heartache.

In an age which bears witness to so much denialism and the rewriting of documented history, Barry Cole gives voice to the nearly 600 silenced enslaved people who laboured and died in the manufacture of pig-iron in Roupe Valley (Tannehill State Park), Alabama. I fell in love with the mythical, fully-human Sadie, who will not be erased. Nor will she be silenced. This short and mesmerising novel is a vital must-read for our age and comes highly recommended.

Sadie, lives 100 years, far longer than anyone else, I absolutely love Historical Fiction, so this was a really good read for me.