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book review, books, Caribbean books, Caribbean Books Foundation, Caribbean Folklore, Caribbean Folklore Month, Caribbean writers, caribbeanauthors, folklore legends, forests, Niques Francois, Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago writers, Trinidad authors, urban fantasy, where sarah gone, young adult novels
This is a consumer review for the Caribbean Books Foundation
Hi.
Yeah, hello. It’s me! Remember me? The little troublemaking alien? The one who dwells not on the interwebs.
This seems to be it for me now. I see you all once every year around Caribbean Folklore Month and I disappear for the next eleven months. I won’t lie, it is getting harder and harder for me to be online. And it’s not because I don’t have anything to post about. Many times I have ideas for things I can discuss here. I even make it as far as drafts and then I decide I could be doing something more important like writing my next book.
Yes! The Halfway Tree is out and more stories are soon to come, like this one.
I have so many ideas and I think I’m just in that space now where writing is finally my top priority. If you’ve been reading my blog a long time now, you KNOW I’ve struggled with this. There was always something else that I needed to do instead of writing but not anymore and I’m going with the flow. So if you see me here, you see me here.
But that’s not why you’re here! You clicked the link because of the title so yes, I will be reviewing Where Sarah Gone? by Niques Francois from Trinidad and Tobago as one of my folklore picks this October.
I started writing this review the same day I finished reading it. I don’t normally approach reviews like that. I tend to need to collect my thoughts first, but I feel like this book says what it needs to say. It’s very straightforward.
This book is about Sarah Sookdeo, 16-years-old and living in 1962 Trinidad and Tobago. Independence has been dropped on the nation like a brand new pair of shoes that you still need to break in but Sarah ain have time for all that. With her father gone, her nagging mother from hell and the pressure to keep her ‘A’ average at school, Sarah can’t think of anything else but to get a scholarship so she can get out of Ceciliaville.
There’s one bright spot in Sarah’s frustrating existence, and of course, it’s a boy. Troy Jacobs. 17-years-old and strapping in his school uniform. She’s liked him since the day he moved into her village two years ago and her friends say he’s always looking her way since he broke up with Melissa. Sarah is so full of thoughts of Troy and thoughts of how maddening her mother is, still treating her like a child, that even though she knows that Melissa disappeared after going into the Wayward forest, she isn’t as cautious as she should be and doesn’t heed the warnings of the adults around her.
Now I’ve never been very, what’s the word? … ‘into’ school romances. Some people prefer them for the cute sweetness compared to the passionate, bodice-busting novellas my older sister used to read. Honestly, I’m not into either but I’ve heard people say this book is a romance and I don’t see it. It touches on forbidden love, coming-of-age stuff, definitely YA first crush drama, but it isn’t romance in the technical sense of what the romance genre is. Nobody gets together and lives happily ever after at the end which is mandatory for a romance. A lil hugging and kissing does not a romance make. The romance girlies will know what I mean. I would categorize this more into urban fiction and young adult fiction, not even historical fiction, which I’ve also seen it under.
Just because something is based in a real place (Trinidad) or even a certain year (1962) doesn’t make it historical fiction. I kept wondering, is Ceciliaville a real place? Were there actual disappearances in that village of young girls in real life in 1962? Why is this historical fiction? The fact that it’s 1962 barely changes anything in the plot except it’s mentioned briefly while Sarah is at school. The setting, characters and conflict also has to be unique to that time, place and era. It could have also been a rural village in the 80s and nothing much would have changed in the story. You all have heard me talk about why genre categorization is important for book marketing in past posts. It’s more about making sure the right audience finds your book and less about putting your book into a strict box like some authors think it is. So historical romance fiction, probably not. Urban fantasy, coming of age, young adult readers, jump into the chat, I have a book for you.
The entire book is really about Sarah reaching the end of a very tight rope her mother has her on and finally breaking free. I can’t say I blame her because she is doing everything she is supposed to be doing. Is not like the girl slacking off, but there’s no leeway in her life to relax. Her mother also seems to be a graduate of Irate Caribbean Mothers, Class of 1946 with a penchant to use the rod, beat and insult the child and demand their respect too. It was hard for me to get into this book but it was because… how to explain? I found myself not being able to relate to so many things that should seem relatable.
For instance, there was never a dream boy in my school years that I couldn’t wait to see at school. I was daydreaming about boys too, don’t get me wrong, but the ones in my head and on the TV screen. I never saw the appeal of boys my age in school. Their sweaty, loud, obnoxious attitudes made any cuteness I maybe saw in them pale in comparison to their ego. I mean, when this is your competition… boys! BAI!
If you are a 90s kiddo, you know. I’m not even going to explain. That’s a little treat for you.
Now I do understand that Sarah didn’t have a TV and internet and all the things that catered to my higher standards (I regret nothing), but I also couldn’t relate to her mother’s behaviour, again, even though I FELT that I should. Irate Caribbean parents and licks with anything they could get their hands on in the moment go together. It’s a running joke. I’ve seen and heard it play out many times (my neighbours are very loud) still, can’t personally relate.
I am absolutely sure me and my siblings got licks growing up but I can’t remember because it was so rare. My mother was born squarely into that generation of passing on licks for the simplest of slights. Every time I see a meme of all the things Caribbean parents used to beat their children with from people born even AFTER me, I get this weird feeling. My 60-something year old mother thinks its funny because that was her. I can’t laugh because could never be my mother with her children (Thank God).
I was lucky enough that my mother refused to pass on her own trauma. She not only recognised the madness and unfairness of beating a child for every perceived or actual wrongdoing, but she also paired it with her own techniques. She didn’t just leave the child to ‘spoil’ as some think. She reasoned with us. Of course that meant many times she would have to let our hardheads be; to do what we wanted and experience and live with life’s consequences. I never knew this violent kind of ‘love’ that parents of that age bestowed upon their children (apparently some still do!). To try to forcefully beat them into the sensible adults they wanted them to be and fail miserably because you literally CANNOT beat sense into anyone. If only it WERE that easy, but I do understand that Sarah’s mother was also a product of her own upbringing.
And this is what I mean by, the book says what it needs to say. There are no hidden meanings you have to figure out. Family hardships and expectations being passed on can cause the next generation to make the same mistakes. It screams cautionary tale, almost a lil too loudly, a little too obviously, but I assume that has more to do with the fact it was first a play. The writer is a playwright and scripts for theatre tend to reveal themes and present allegories differently than book manuscripts would simply because the way the audience receives the story is different. It’s a matter of translation from stage to page, not so much the story itself.
But outside of Sarah’s silly young crush and her mother’s severe shortcomings which made Sarah feel even more alone and intensified her crush even more as the only fuzzy feeling she could latch onto, there were some things I related to in this book. Like the tendency for parents to drag children to family/neighbourhood functions as a teenager. I felt her pain. Like all these big people here – who I go talk to? I have thankfully been emancipated from such torture. Now, I go willingly, so not much has changed. I liked some of the banter between her and her friends. I also liked Sarah as a character. Sometimes I felt that she was missing the crucial point that we all could see. Like girl, I know you’re poor and stressed out but rebel for something worth it! Not Troy in his short, khaki pants. But then, I also understood her feelings and why she did what she did. The author painted that picture nicely.
We still ain know where Sarah gone though…
I feel the reason why I’m confused is because the ‘jumbie’ in the book… I have no idea what it is. If I knew I could probably make a guess. What happened is inferred but at the same time, the story just ends without getting to what was inferred, so I was left like, wait, what actually happened? The end of Those Who Trespass Against Us which I reviewed last year, also just ends but you know what happened. Twas very clear that what was inferred is what happened. This… I ain’t too sure where Sarah gone, but maybe that was the point.
I will say, this seems like either brand new lore or something specific to a village somewhere that the author may have heard of. Either way I think it counts as a folklore read even if it doesn’t actually name the folklore. The story operates more like an urban legend, which is why, again, I would put it under urban fantasy. But if it’s new folklore, kudos to the author. Of course I can’t describe it because I would give away the story, so sorry. Go read the book if this sounds like something you might like.
Personally, I’ll give it 3 and a half stars out of 5, simply because I wasn’t rivetted. There was no point where I was hooked and needed to know more. It might resonate with younger readers though so I’m still recommending it. If you want to find out more about the author, you can follow them here on Instagram, where you can find more about her work. Have a great Caribbean Folklore month, go to reading, enter a book giveaway or competition. Check Caribbean Authors for all the posts this year, and remember, critics may lie.
– True Nicks, Caribbean Books Foundation
If you are a Caribbean author and wish to get your book reviewed by the site please send an email to caribbeanbooksfoundation@gmail.com to get more information.