Review by Catszs84 -- Mixed Blessings by J.M. Muse

[Catszs84]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Mixed Blessings" by J.M. Muse.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Mixed Blessings by J.M.Muse is a story centered around race in America. It follows several stories and characters throughout many hardships and efforts to make changes to the way race is looked at in the USA.

The book begins with a coming of age tale about Kimberly visiting wealthy relatives in Mexico. Kimberly is shocked at the level of wealth her estranged family have and it seems she will have a good relationship with her new family. I found this part of the story quite interesting so I was disappointed when this ended and a new story began. From then we follow many stories from Kublai Khan attempting to set up birth centers to increase the amount of black people in the USA to a Japanese pageant with racist undertones to a white Christian terrorist group.

Each story has it's interesting parts but I really don't think they fit well together as 1 book. I'm still unsure what the Japanese pageant had to do with anything else in the book. I also feel like the author has not heard any young people speak in a very long time or is basing the characters on a bad 90's TV show. Young people do not speak how these characters speak. I found myself cringing at some parts of dialogue.

The book often read as if it was written by an amateur author. For example, there is a relationship between two characters and when you put their names together you get Chaka Khan. A lot of things seem like they are too obvious and lack imagination. There is a relationship that is difficult to understand as it is clear it is not healthy but there is no closure by the end of the book.

The editing of the book leaves a lot to be desired, there are quite a lot of errors that need to be amended.

Due to this book feeling like it would be better as two or maybe even three different books and the poor dialogue I give Mixed Blessings 2 out of 4 stars . The end of the book is better than the beginning and middle but even so the part that has kept my attention is the pagaent that seemed to have no part of the overall story. The reader should be left with the ending of the book given that it is a strong ending but honestly, I'm just left with confusion.

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Mixed Blessings
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