Friday, January 2, 2015

Ruth's Redemption Book Review



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 About the Book

Set in the 1800s, Ruth’s Redemption, is an unusual depiction of the lives of slaves and free blacks in pre-Civil War America.  Bo, was educated while a slave.  He was given his freedom and now owns a farm buying slaves for the sole purpose of giving them their freedom. Bo is also a man of God and widower whose life is destined to change when he meets the proud and hard-hearted slave girl, Ruth.

Ruth has known nothing but servitude and brutality since being separated from her mother at age thirteen. Purchased and sold primarily for breeding, her heart is filled with resentment and bitterness.  Ruth wants no part of Bo’s Godly devotion.  Yet Bo is unlike any man she’s known and her experiences with him will leave her forever changed.

A gripping slave era novel, Ruth’s Redemption is a story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of the Nat Turner Rebellion in Tidewater, Virginia, this novel shines the light of God’s unconditional love in the darkness of a culture’s cruel socially accepted inhumanity. (Goodreads)

 My Review

I enjoy reading about this time in history because it puts life in perspective. Slaves, and the horrors that people thought they had every right to enact. Ruth was sold as a breeder. What?! Crazy to think not just prostitution but as breeding as if livestock. That part of the story was interesting, and it's so sad how so many women were treated that way. Now the rest of the story line really disappointed me to be honest. 
Bo is a "good Christian man" and buys Ruth out of slavery, but she won't leave him so he is "forced to marry her." This is where I think the storyline got a bit iffy. He wants to do good by Ruth and not pressure her. She has been abused and raped her whole life, she has no idea what a life outside of that is like and he knows that. Yet, I felt like as a reader he did just the opposite. He was kind but he still had his "manly needs". 
I don't know I was just thrown off by the rest of the story because she didn't even realize what marriage meant! I do like the history and how slaves were made free and the realistic facts of what went on. I just wish the personal story line was a bit different. 

Three stars.

 "I received this book from MP Newsroom for free in exchange for an honest review."








 

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