The Liberation of Ravenna Morton By Suzanne Jenkins
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- Birdlady1950
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The Liberation of Ravenna Morton By Suzanne Jenkins
In The Liberation Of Ravenna Morton by author Suzanne Jenkins, the reader finds families divided by prejudice, shame, and secrets. Ravenna Morton, Ojibwe Native American, lives in Michigan by the river side in a cabin without modern conveniences, electricity, or phone. With an unorthodox common law marriage to Mike, an artist with Greek ancestory, she raises six children. Living the life of the old way, Ravenna has secrets she has carried her entire life. Secrets which when revealed will affect many. After the death of the child she gave up for adoption long ago, the time's right for revelations.
Before the death of Esme Wynd's mother at 62, she made a death-bed confession, revealing a secret few knew. Esme feels she must follow the revelation to its end. Esme travels to Michigan; setting the stage for drama, family discord, and revelations. Will these families withstand the scrutiny of the community, jealousies, shame, and discord as secrets come to light? My review of The Liberation Of Ravenna Morton, follows.
CHARACTERS, PLOTTING, DEVELOPMENT:
I am not sure where to start with this review. I am not sure I can tell you of this dramatic and heart wrenching story and do it justice. Filled with drama, family dynamics, and emotion, the reader's taken on a journey of enlightenment. The Liberation Of Ravenna Morton left me thoughtful and sorrowful as I realized how the past affects generations in the future with far-reaching results. Following Ravenna through her struggles and abuse, the reader finds she's not defined by her past. But by strong character and her culture, which gave her strength to raise six children in an unorthodox common law marriage. Staying true to her Native America culture, Ravenna lives her life isolated in her woodland cabin. Ravenna was known as "the Indian woman who came to town in the canoe", in her small town of conservative whites.
The plotting of The Liberation of Ravenna Morton's smooth and steady as the reader follows her life from abuse and struggles, as well as, a one of a kind love. Jenkins revealed the lengths the United States Government was willing to employee to integrate the Native American's into the white culture. Looked upon as less than the dirt under their white feet, Ravenna and her ancestors, faced prejudice and ridicule. How can we call ourselves a Christian Nation when we were willing to annihilate an entire race and culture? It made me sick to my stomach.
Ravenna rises above all her struggles as she lives by her inventive outlook and Ojibwe culture. Ravenna's children have issues and struggles due their unorthodox upbringing; the children's struggles were heart wrenching. With intense family dynamics and the story-line character driven, Jenkins holds the reader's interest.
In concluding my review, when I started this book, I did not expect the intense emotion I found; I read this book straight through as I followed the life of these families. I found the pace of the novel steady as Jenkins revealed the underbelly of the Morton family and an intense character driven story-line. With Jenkins vivid descriptions, I could smell the sweet grass and see the woodland Ravenna loved so well.
RECOMMENDATION: STARS 4
Suitable for anyone who enjoys a drama filled story-line which does not use sex or fluff to fill the pages. This is a clean read.
FINALLY, PLEASE NOTE:
In addition, I received this book from the author and chose to voluntarily review the book with an honest contemporary novel review. Lastly, book reviews of any novel are dependent on the book review author’s opinion. Consequently, all book reviews on-line and on my blog, are my opinion. No influenced my voluntary review of contemporary novel, The Liberation Of Ravenna Morton.
- Jaime Lync
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- Birdlady1950
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Sorry, I confused you with the 5 stars I forgot to change to 4 stars for review I posted on onlinebookclub. I will try to do better.
Meaning of the full 1-5 stars :
1 full Star: very poor book, not well plotted or constructed, poor composition, poor development, very poorly written, etc.
2 full Stars: little better in than the one star in construction, composition, plotting, development of story etc;
3 full Stars: middle of the road book in construction, plotting, composition, development etc;
4 full Stars: good book with good composition, plotting, development, construction, etc.;
5 full Stars: the best you can give; the author hit all the marks, the composition, plotting, development, construction, etc. is great.
Full stars detailed above compared to half stars: NOTE: I rarely use 1/2 stars
Sometimes a book fits in-between the the full stars; as an example-The book is not a 4 star book but more than a 3; (falls in-between the two ratings) the reviewer can use 1/2 stars shown as 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5.
I hope this helps some with my reviews. I don't know what criteria other reviewers use to determine the stars given to a book. this is my criteria only, as I can not speak for anyone else.
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