Hi everyone. I'm rincey and this is
rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing
a book review on forty acres by Dwayne
Alexander Smith. This is a thriller that
I read in January and there's a lot
happening in this book. So I wanted to do
a dedicated video on it. So in this story
you are following this character named
Martin Grey who is this black lawyer who
at the beginning of the story is working
on this lawsuit. And he is up against
this other black lawyer named Damon who
is like one of the most prominent
lawyers in the area. He has basically
like an undefeated streak going for him
in terms of his cases. And he's basically
like expected to lose. But he ends up
winning the case for his client, which
is this huge deal. So after winning the case,
Damon ends up inviting Martin and his
wife over to his house for dinner and it
turns out to be a dinner party with a
whole group of important, prominent,
successful black people. So Martin and
Damon end up sort of becoming friends.
They spend a lot of time together. Damon
continually invites them out to
different events or to dinner or just to
hang out or to have coffee or whatever.
And so this relationship is building and
then Damon invites Martin out on this
whitewater rafting trip that he and
these other black men end up going on
every now and then. So Martin agrees to
go and it turns out there's a lot more
happening with this group of friends
then originally meets the eye. It turns
out that they are part of this secret
society and everything just sort of goes
down from there.
If you watched my January wrap-up, you
would have seen me talking about this
book a little bit and that's where I
stopped the synopsis there and that's
where I'm going to stop the synopsis
here. Because if you read the front flap
or the Amazon or Goodreads summary or
anything like that you'll see a lot more
information about the book but I think
that this book is better knowing less
because the twists and the turn seem even
more surprising then. So overall I really
enjoyed this book. It's definitely the
definition of a thriller. The chapters
are super short and a lot of times they
end on that sort of like cliffhanger-y
type ending that makes you want to keep
reading. The storyline is really, really
interesting. I went into this knowing
literally nothing about it. But from the
very beginning you know that something
is up, you know that something is 
off or wrong or, you know,
it doesn't quite sit right. And I
will say it does take a little bit of
time to really get into the meat of the
story. But once it gets going, it like
really gets going.
Dwayne Alexander Smith is a screenwriter
and it's definitely apparent in the way
this book is written. You can visually
see everything that's happening, which is
both a good thing and a bad thing.
A bad thing because there are some scenes that
are really hard to take, at least for
me personally it was. The fact that you
can visually see it all was a little bit
tough to get through. But at the same
time it's also apparent in the weaknesses
of this book. The characters aren't all
completely developed in a way that is
super satisfactory. And again, the plot
moves really, really fast and so there's
a lot of like deeper social issues that
are touched upon in this book that
personally I think would have been
significantly better if they were
fleshed out a lot more. A lot of what
they talked about in this book has to
deal with being a black man in America,
what that means, trying to be successful
in the United States. Also what black
people are owed so to speak, their
disadvantages in life, the choices that
black men now might make in order to be
successful and what it looks like to sort
of pay it forward. Part of what makes
this book so good is there's a lot of
discussions in here that are really
troublesome and dark. And, you know, you
know as a reader that it isn't really
the right way to think but at the same
time you can kind of see how people get
to those conclusions. And part of me kind
of wishes that there was a deeper
discussion of both how these characters
got to that point and also why that's
not okay. Another sort of weakness with
this book is the ending a little bit.
The way everything wraps up, it happens
really, really fast.
And so I found it to be a little bit
less satisfactory than you know I would
really hope. But overall I found this to
be a really interesting book.
Someone over at book riot said that this would
be a good sort of read alike to if you
liked the movie get out. And once that
person said that I couldn't get that out
of my head because it feels so true.
While this isn't a horror novel by any
means, it's definitely a thriller in the
same vein as get out is and I think that
those types of social issues and those
types of stories that make you really
examine the real world are very few
and far between. And I think both get out and
Forty Acres do this thing where they sort of
take things to an extreme but then you
can also see the seeds of those extreme
actions in the world that we live in and
so it doesn't feel quite as extreme as
you might think. I gave this book a 4 out
of 5 stars. I thought it was really,
really well done. It feels like there are
a couple of missed opportunities in here.
There is Martin's lawyer slash partner
in the company that they run that feels
like he could have been utilized
slightly better or slightly more, there's
stuff with his wife that is touched upon
but again probably could have been
fleshed out a lot more. But overall, if
you're looking for page-turning thriller
that gives you something to think about
and gives you something to chew on, then
I definitely think that forty acres is one
that you should pick up. So yeah, that's
everything that I have for this video.
Feel free to leave a comment down below
letting me know if you've read this book.
Or if you have any questions or comments
about the book, definitely leave that
down in the comment section as well.
So yeah, that's all I have for now and
thanks for watching.
