Review of Mixed Blessings

[Navya Sharma 3]

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

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4 out of 4 stars

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Mixed Blessing by J.M.Muse showcases a world where skin color determines your influence and your survival. The story follows Kimberly Solberg, daughter of a Jew and a Mexican, who is trying to find her own happiness in the midst of the battle of race and color.

While the story showcased stories of multiple characters, the focus remained on Kimberly Solberg and Minister Kublai Khan. Kimberly is a recent high school graduate who is trying to find where she belongs and on the other hand, Kublai is fighting for black people's rights. With two different people who are at different spectrum, the difference can be clearly seen as Kublai is someone who is aware of where he belongs and can be aggressive in his approach during his fights while Kimberly on the other hand at the tender age is naïve and still not aware of how cruel the world can be.

Kublai Khan uses birthing camps to populate African Americans to dominate the race and increases the black’s power. While the idea was politically strategic, the idea of using Asian virgins and the talk about asking the woman to let men pregnant them to grow the community was very uncomfortable to me as a woman. By the time I reached the end, I did see some amount of character development but there was still a lot more space for the growth. It can be clearly seen that while he is determined for black representation, he doesn’t respect women or consider their needs. Khan’s character was what I liked least about this book.

The author managed to capture both the good and the bad sides of a rebellion and war. The idea of courage and sacrifice may seem patriotic at the community level but it often does huge damage at an individual level which almost all the time leaders fail to consider. While most of the people in the community may be the cause of the hatred that caused the rebellion, it doesn’t mean everyone is like that but in the midst of hatred and war, people forget all about this which results in taking the lives of the innocents.

The ending was unsatisfying, giving us a reality check. While Khan managed to achieve some amount of success with his propaganda, many innocent people lost their lives on the way.

I would rate this book 4 out of 4 stars for its execution and the idea portrayed in the story. The book contains some sexual content but no profanity. I also found one error other than that the book is without any error, typos, or grammatical mistakes. I would recommend this book to those who like reading about racism and politics.

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Mixed Blessings
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