baronessekat | 2019 reading challenge: Read a book during the season it is set in

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'd give it a 4.5 so I rounded up.

What an absolutely beautifully haunting story. It was lovely and grotesque. Sad and happy. Frustrating, and hopeful. Uplifting and depressing. And if I had not been at work when I finished listening to this book I would probably be weeping at the ending. And I have to say that I don't know if it was the author's story or the narrator's voice but dayum.

For millennia Love and Death have played a game. Each generation or so they pick the players, they role the dice and set the rules and then wait to see who wins. Death has always won. In 1920 they pick their players for the next round of the game. Love picks Henry, a white boy born into privilege. Death picks Flora, an African-American girl born to a struggling family. The question is... despite everything, can Love finally win?

Like I said, haunting, beautiful, moving. On top of the main story of the Game, there are wonderful subplots that deal deeply and frankly with Race, Class, sexuality, power and privilege. This will be a book that haunts me for a while and one that I will tell people they should read.

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