Discussion of The Wedding Gift

[Scott]

Please use this topic to discuss the March 2012 book of the month, The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden. Please wait to read this topic until you have finished the book because this topic will contain spoilers.

What do you think of the book? Do you recommend it? What do you think of the characters? Any favorite parts or characters?

[terrisbooks]

Is there any where to buy this book for e-readers besides Amazon's kindle. I have a Sony reader, I did not find it in my library downloads either. please help.

[Agebabb460]

I definitely was surprised by the topic but I thoroughly enjoy this book. Being African-American, I have definitely thought about slavery and the horrendous things that my ancestors had to endure but I have never read anything that helped me to understand that not just brown people were slaves. I felt so connected to the characters in this book and read it every free moment that I could (I'm a new user of e-readers and I love my kindle!). I, of course, loved Sarah's character and she surprised the hell out of me with her secrets at the end but in the end, I found myself feeling surprisingly sympathetic toward Theodora because she lived her life as property, similar to the slaves and I noticed a lot of similarities between her and the slaves. Marlen introduced new and interesting views on masters and those that they oppress. I definitely recommend it to all.

[Fran]

I definitely was surprised by the topic but I thoroughly enjoy this book. Being African-American, I have definitely thought about slavery and the horrendous things that my ancestors had to endure but I have never read anything that helped me to understand that not just brown people were slaves. I felt so connected to the characters in this book and read it every free moment that I could (I'm a new user of e-readers and I love my kindle!). I, of course, loved Sarah's character and she surprised the hell out of me with her secrets at the end but in the end, I found myself feeling surprisingly sympathetic toward Theodora because she lived her life as property, similar to the slaves and I noticed a lot of similarities between her and the slaves. Marlen introduced new and interesting views on masters and those that they oppress. I definitely recommend it to all.

Reading it on my Kindle too, 25% into it, & I'm having much the same reaction to Theodora as you. So far though, I am a bit disappointed with the character development they just seem to lack depth but I'll wait and see how the rest of the book goes before I comment any further.

[Starcat42]

The wedding Gift took me in a world I couldn’t imagine not even in my dreams. To live a live that did not belong to you and always with the fear of tomorrow, as you don’t know what your master‘ s whims were.
The women in this novel had to be more than strong. No matter if they were white or black they were all slaves ruled by the hand of gruel men.
Sarah was the strongest and she took and so she took up the strongest measurements on her way to freedom. Yet the end was a real surprise for me.

-- 12 Mar 2012, 11:23 --

The wedding Gift took me in a world I couldn’t imagine not even in my dreams. To live a live that did not belong to you and always with the fear of tomorrow, as you don’t know what your master‘ s whims were.
The women in this novel had to be more than strong. No matter if they were white or black they were all slaves ruled by the hand of gruel men.
Sarah was the strongest and she took and so she took up the strongest measurements on her way to freedom. Yet the end was a real surprise for me.

[Fran]

I gave The Wedding Gift a rating of fair
Of course the setting of the book and the circumstances of the characters is horrendous, totally appalling and unacceptable to any right thinking person but on the whole the book just did not grab me. I thought the characters were not well developed and in honesty I did not feel especially involved with any of them. IMO sufficient time was not given to developing the characters to enable the reader to get to know them and their motivations and to be able to empathise with them ... for me they were all just too superficial and stereotypical. I found the chapters to be disjointed and in many instances confusing, some chapters I was 3 or 4 paragraphs into before I understood who exactly was speaking.

I did finish it, but then I rarely give up on a book once I've started it, but IMO there are much better books set in this time period and dealing with this subject.

[Schmunzelmonster]

I wasn´t looking forward to reading this, because this kind of literature upsets me too much. I usually stay clear of all of it. Thinking that my ancestors were treated this way pains me. It is good and important, that we never forget what happened and these kind of books help, but as I said I am not strong enough to endure most of them.

That said, I gave this book a chance. I thought I´ll start reading it and if I can´t finish that´s how it is. Against all odds I did finish it and even started liking it. To me the change of perspective was a nice way of telling both stories, but always very disconnected. I wonder if that was on purpose or only bad character development.

Maybe it´s too obvious but not one charcter in the book raised a voice about the double standard, that a man can have as many "bastards" as he wants but when a woman has one she is despicable.

As I mentioned above I enjoyed the book more than I have expected and if it wasn´t for the ending I would rate it more than okay/fair. My main issues with the ending are three.
For once I expected Sarah to flee and succeed on her own wits. Everyone in this book praises her as a very smart girl. Yet only coincidences save her most of the time. To cut her hair was an intelligent thing to do, but other than that there wasn´t much. She learned to read. That and a lot of luck got her out of most situations.
The other thing is, does this book really call for a Hollywood Happy End? IMO it doesn´t and it makes the book unrealistic and it deviates from the rest of it´s style. Sometimes more is less and I would have been fine with Sarah living in New York as a paid maid or something.
The third and deciding factor that disappointed me, was Sarah´s revenge. I do get why she killed Mr. Allen. What I can not agree with is her mean behavior towards her husband. Yes, he did betray her and that is dishonorable, she didn´t deserve to be treated like this. But to sent him to certain punishment? Maybe even death? She could have expected him to lose a foot. Such a lack of compassion doesn´t fit in with the rest of her character (again bad character development?) and wasn´t even necessary for the story. It doesn´t serve any means, so why do it? That´s where the book lost me.

[cocoaaa45]

I vote 3 stars - good, recommend it.

[oliv101]

Great topic to discuss on, As its the most special day to any individual, one would love to have and deserve the most glowing and vibrant day through.

[Fran]

Great topic to discuss on, As its the most special day to any individual, one would love to have and deserve the most glowing and vibrant day through.

Clearly you didn't bother to read the book

[Dreamer27]

I would say it is book for one time....easy to read and easy to forget.......I would rate of 2 stars -ok

[Carla Hurst-Chandler]

Great topic to discuss on, As its the most special day to any individual, one would love to have and deserve the most glowing and vibrant day through.

(cleaing my throat)

You're bluffing. Next time actually read the book.

[allay]

Amazing idea about wedding gift.

[kgntechnologies]

It is a spine-electrifying synthetic story where a large The southern region element of Declares house contains one of the most dreadful, insane and indeed psychopathic feelings to problem any city. It is also a removing key - why did Robina Willets seemingly remove all five of her kids, and her affiliate, before stabbing herself to death? And, if you are in the go camping outside of knowing that 'justice .... just is not', then this will have you frothing at the lip place with righteous group rage.

[Carla Hurst-Chandler]

Liked the juxtaposition of Sarah (being offered as a slave as a Wedding Gift) and the fact that Clarissa being married meant she would become her husband's chattel as well.

The first half of the book flowed well and I enjoyed that for the most part it was dialog. The last seemed hurried and like the writer just wanted it finished.

3 out of 5 stars.