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A Taste Of Honey: Stories (2010)

by Jabari Asim(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0767919785 (ISBN13: 9780767919784)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Broadway Books

review 1: This book was pretty good. Asim has a writing style that is both easy to read and literary, which I can really appreciate. His gift for character-making is strong: his descriptions of their appearances, mannerisms, pasts, all work to make each one so believable, and I really liked the diversity represented by the people in these stories. With the racism of the time period in this setting, some stories were hard to read...violence, harassment, deference. My favorites were the more domestic ones,like "The Boy on the Couch", "The Wheat From the Tares", and "Drunk on History". The ending story, "Burning Desires", was the perfect choice...a love story intertwined in an unlikely way with the death of MLK Jr. and the heartbreaking riots. That story's title is genius, too. ... moreMy only complaint is that sometimes the stories were too short, making me feel kind of like I was jumping all over the place while reading the collection, but I liked that they were all about the same group of people in different times, circumstances, places. That was a fresh way to do short stories. All in all, not great, but solidly good and glad I read this author. I may look for his other work; a nice long novel by him would interest me.
review 2: This work was a selection of my book club and I probably would not have read it on my own. Fortunately, book clubs lead one to new ways and this was a lovely discovery. “Taste of Honey” is supposedly a collection of sixteen connected short stories, but stands on its own as a fully developed novel. Set in fictitious Gateway City (St. Louis) on the Mississippi River during the sixties, it covers a few months in the lives of a middle class black family living in a segregated section of town. The story revolves around the relationships within one family as well as the community as family. The family and community have a number of unforgettable, beautiful and sympathetic characters. It also has some brutal scenes as a result of neighboring Neanderthal white residents---a not infrequent occurrence at the time. A Taste of Honey is an uplifting book--- and a primer for those who are not too familiar with this sad era in American history. less

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