#the unsettled

[burntcrumpets]

the Unsettled

[burntcrumpets]

get a load of these guys

[aceinabook]

Character 3| Setting 4| Plot 2.5| Writing 4| Enjoyment 1.5

Rating: 3

I am all over the board on this book. I wanted to finish it, as I felt it had something to say, so I didn't want to DNF it, even though I was definitely not excited to pick it up or learn more about what was happening.

I just felt that Ava was such a strange character; she was someone who wanted to protect her son, but I felt like she made some strange decisions. Especially whenever Cass was there. I didn't understand why she went with Cass, Mathis made an interesting choice of not showing us quite the reunion of Cass and Ava, it skipped over it.

I enjoyed the first half of this book because it felt like it was calling out shelter system and how it's hard to be homeless when you felt it would never happen to you. It can happen to anyone. I don't know about countries out of USA, but most Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless. It's tough, and from what I've seen it's even harder for Black Americans.

I wanted to finish this because I was hoping it was a commentary on that system. It kind of felt like it was, but didn't seem to go that far because we then went to the weird cult of Cassius Wright.

I didn't understand it at all. Why were so many people willing to go to Cass's weird charisma? He was a charismatic man, I can see him doing that. But Ava Knew him before! She knew what he was like why did she stay with this man who kept belittling her? And then everyone blamed Ava for things. Listen Ava is not a perfect person I think she was a snob, but it was just wild some of the things Cass did.

Then I thought Mathis was going to make a commentary on how the Police treat Black Americans just existing and it kind of did, but the end just felt bland. It Just felt like a non-ending.

Mathis went with two main POVs: Ava and Dutchess. Or if you want to say two settings Phildelphia and Bonaparte. I enjoyed most of Bonaparte sections and I wish we had gotten to see how Toussaint existed in Bonaparte.

I don't know maybe I'm missing something from this.

[atthefishhouses]

Ayana Mathis Examines Generational Struggle in “The Unsettled”

“Could be that ‘now’ is already curled up inside ‘then,’ like a family’s generations already inside a woman’s body. What a terror.”

Used to be most nights you could see across to the lights in Bodine, but now half the time there’s a curtain of mist that rises up over the middle of the river, some spots thick as cotton balls, other places thin like gauze, all of it pearling and shimmering and breaking apart and coming together again, so the white people’s shoreline is now you see it, now you don’t. I’ve sat here the night through a couple of times, watching it knit and unknit itself. Silly as it is, round dawn I got a little nervous it wouldn’t burn off. I don’t like new weather, which is a reasonable position—no such thing as new weather, right?

Ayana Miles, The Unsettled

[kammartinez]

Ayana Mathis on Prioritizing the People on the Page

First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, nonfiction, essay writers, and poets, highli

[kamreadsandrecs]

Ayana Mathis on Prioritizing the People on the Page

First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, nonfiction, essay writers, and poets, highli

[gebo4482]

The Unsettled