Bingo Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
I forgot I had this book on my bingo chart for the year, and I wasn't planning on writing a review until I remembered, because I don't really have a lot to say about it.
The book follows Janie, a young black woman in the American south in the 1920s. She wants more out of life than the marriage her grandmother strives to get for her. When she kisses a boy her grandmother quickly sets her up with an older man and they are married. Janie resents this life and when a happy-go-lucky fellow comes by her garden gate she takes up with him. He gives her a different life from what she had, but she still isn't happy with it. When she finally meets Tea Cake she is content.
As I said I wasn't planning on writing a review, because I didn't really enjoy this book, but I didn't hate it either. I just don't think it was for me. Janie seems unsatisfied with her lot in life, and she is portrayed as someone with gumption and drive, but then she sits back and lets the men run her life. And I get that that was to some degree necessary in the 1920s, but still. And I couldn't figure out why she was so content with Tea Cake, when their relationship to me at least seemed to be very similar to her other relationships. Her first two husbands expected her to work, and she resented that, but when Tea Cake expected her to work, she did it willingly.
The writing style was also a bit of a chore to get through. A lot of it was told by Janie or in the form of conversations, and the writer used the vernacular of the time and place making it a bit of an uphill struggle to always understand what was going on.
This book just wasn't for me so I gave it 2 stars out of 5.
The book follows Janie, a young black woman in the American south in the 1920s. She wants more out of life than the marriage her grandmother strives to get for her. When she kisses a boy her grandmother quickly sets her up with an older man and they are married. Janie resents this life and when a happy-go-lucky fellow comes by her garden gate she takes up with him. He gives her a different life from what she had, but she still isn't happy with it. When she finally meets Tea Cake she is content.
As I said I wasn't planning on writing a review, because I didn't really enjoy this book, but I didn't hate it either. I just don't think it was for me. Janie seems unsatisfied with her lot in life, and she is portrayed as someone with gumption and drive, but then she sits back and lets the men run her life. And I get that that was to some degree necessary in the 1920s, but still. And I couldn't figure out why she was so content with Tea Cake, when their relationship to me at least seemed to be very similar to her other relationships. Her first two husbands expected her to work, and she resented that, but when Tea Cake expected her to work, she did it willingly.
The writing style was also a bit of a chore to get through. A lot of it was told by Janie or in the form of conversations, and the writer used the vernacular of the time and place making it a bit of an uphill struggle to always understand what was going on.
This book just wasn't for me so I gave it 2 stars out of 5.
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