Hi everyone. I'm rincey and this is
rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing
a book review and silver sparrow by
Tayari Jones. Most people probably know
Tayari Jones for writing the book an
american marriage, which i read when it
originally came out and I really enjoyed
that book. And so I've had my eye on
picking up more of her books and books
from her back list and whatnot since
then. And so I finally picked up my first
one. So in this story you are following
basically these two families that are
related, but not in the way that you
would expect. The father figure in this
book is named James Witherspoon and he
has two families. He got married when he
was really young and then when he was
older he started having an affair and
then he married the woman that he was
having affair with while still married
to his other wife.
So yeah that's exactly like how the
story starts out. The very first line in
this book that's like printed on the
back and on the blurbs it says, "my father
James Witherspoon is a bigamist." So the
way this book is broken up is into kind
of two sections. In the first section
you are following the story through
Dana's point of view who is the daughter
in the secret family. And then there is
the second half of the book that is told
through the eyes of Gwendolyn who is his
like public family. The story is set in
Atlanta in the 1980s and you're
following these two girls as they are
growing up and just sort of realizing
the life that they have as well as what
they definitely don't know about the
world. The secret family knows about the
public family but the public family
doesn't know about the secret family. And
so in the first half of the book you're
seeing kind of how the secret family
chooses to live their life. A lot of what
they get is sort of based on what the
public family gets and they sort of get
the leftovers or the hand-me-downs from
that fact. Dana, who's in the secret
family, goes to a different school than
Gwendolyn. She wants to go to this camp
but Gwendolyn wants to go to the camp. So
the father let's Gwendolyn go to
the camp and makes Dana choose a different
one. Or when she wants to get a job at
the amusement park over the summer, the
father says no because Gwendolyn is
working at that amusement park over the
summer, things like that.
And so you basically just follow them as
they grow up and deal with these
circumstances. And it's really hard to
give like a plot summary that's more
expansive than that because then you're
just getting into like the real
specifics of what happens in this book,
which isn't really what's important
here. So if you're someone who read an
American marriage, I can't necessarily
say whether or not you're going to like
Silver Sparrow, which is probably super
unhelpful for a lot of people who are
watching this thinking about that
specific thing. But I feel like it's a
book that you should give a chance
anyways because there are a lot of
things in here that feel very familiar
if you read an American marriage but
this book is wholly different from it as
well. Just that like plot summary alone I
feel like shows how it's different and
how it's similar. It's similar in the
sense that you're following this really
complicated family situation, which is
also what happens in an American
marriage but it's just like a completely
different type of complicated family
situation. So it isn't the same, you know,
but it has a familiar feeling to it.
Tayari Jones is really good at creating
these complicated characters that you
end up caring a whole lot about. When
you're reading this book from Dana's
perspective, you have so much sympathy
for them and the situation that they're
in. And then it switches over to Gwendolyn's
perspective and then you start to gain a
lot of sympathy for them in their
situation and the fact that there's so
much more going on that they are
completely ignorant about. And so if like
that complicated situation, a high drama
sort of thing is kind of what you
enjoyed in American Marriage or one of
the things that you enjoyed in American
Marriage, I think you would like this
book. But this book feels very different.
This book was written seven years before
an American marriage and you can see
like the growth that Tayari Jones has as
a writer between this book and that book.
This book is a much slower moving story
and it feels slightly less planned out.
Like obviously I can't really say that
because I don't really know how much
tayari jones planned out any of it. But an
American marriage felt like it had
a purpose and a plot and this one is
kind of more of one of those like slow,
meandering coming-of-age stories where
just following someone grow up and
seeing how they deal with the
circumstances with their lives. And
that's not meant to be a major like diss
against this book but it is that way. And
so I can see this appealing to less
people. And especially for me, I went into
this book knowing basically nothing but
the synopsis. And so for the first half of the book I
was reading it and I was enjoying it
because Tayari Jones is a good writer but
I couldn't necessarily see where it was
all going because there isn't, again, a
very strong plot in this book. But then
once it's like switches perspectives,
certain circumstances happen and you can
see sort of like where it's moving
towards. And that kind of makes it more
exciting again. And so I feel like if
you're someone who-- and so I feel like if
you're someone who picked this book up
like completely blind you could be put
off by the first half of this book just
because it doesn't really feel like it's
going anywhere and it doesn't really go
anywhere until the second half of the
book. But Tayari Jones looks at a lot of
the same themes in terms of like family
and loyalty and love and betrayal and
all of those different ideas. But again
just through different vessels and
through different situations. I feel like
this would be a really great book club
book because everything in here is so
complicated and so gray and it's so
hard to have like super strong feelings
about this was-- this character was always
right or this character was always wrong
or anything along those lines. Just like
in real life, every character in here
makes really terrible mistakes and every
character in here makes goodness-- like
good choices and you can't really judge
any of them because they're kind of just
doing the best that they can for the
most part. And the ending is for sure
going to give people a whole lot of
opinions. I won't state what my opinion was. I was
just surprised that it went the way that
it did. But also I feel like I would have
been surprised no matter, if I think
about like every possible scenario, they
all would have just been surprises
because again this book has so many like
conflicts and twists and complicated
situations that there's no
like clear path that it could have taken.
I found this to be like a really
beautiful book though because you're
following these girls as they're growing
up, these two black girls who are both
dealing with you know being black in the
United States. It's set in the 1980s. I don't
remember if I said that already.
And so they're like growing up in this
world and learning about who they are
and who they should be and who society
expects them to be and who you know even
their family and their parents expect
them to be and they have their own hopes
and dreams for their lives. But then
they're also in this like extremely
complicated situation that also just
adds additional layers to it. And your
heart just kind of breaks for them
because like they never chose to be in
this situation.
You know, at least like the parents or at
least you know the dad and one of the
moms chose this life for themselves to a
certain extent. And so the kids kind of
feel like they're screwed no matter what
because they are in this situation but
they never would have chosen to be in
this situation if they could. So yeah, in
the end I gave this book at three and a
half out of five stars. It's not as
strong as an American marriage in my
opinion, but I do see on Goodreads that
there are some people who like this one
more than American marriage. So I guess
like your mileage may vary but I suppose
that's the case with all books. But for
me personally, I just feel like an
American marriage was so much stronger
and tightly written that that's always
just what I'm gonna gravitate towards.
But I still feel like this was a
completely worthwhile read. So those are
my quick thoughts on Silver Sparrow by
Tayari Jones. Let me know down in the
comments below if you've read this book
and what your thoughts were on it. Again,
I feel like this is a book that's like
pretty, I don't want to say divisive
because not only people hate this book.
Well I'm sure there are some people who
didn't really enjoy this book. But I feel
like it's a book that I can see people
both enjoying and not enjoying. So I
would love to see what side of the fence
you fall on. So yeah, that's all I have
for now and thanks for watching.
