A Ship Made of Paper : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: what's love got to do with it
Review: I agree with many reviewers that the writing was good in part but wasted on unlikeable characters, a weak romance and unpleasant stereotypes (why are all the young black male characters violent, why doesn't the devoted mother get counseling for a 5 yr old who left a babysitter needing 20+ stitches and shot at another kid, why does the caring stepfather let these kids play together unsupervised?)

And I think there was a glaring error in the very first sentence that foreshadows a critical scene when it says Kate has to leave the party to relieve the daughter's babysitter because they took the daughter with them to the party.

Rating:
Summary: A Ship Made of Quicksand
Review: Like some of the other reviewers, I too felt I was duped into believing that this was a great book. I am not discrediting Spencer as a novelist, he's quite talented. It's not his writing style that is in question but this implausible plot with trifling characters that makes me take pause in praising this book.

I like Spencer's attempt to show characters who are human, warts and all, we all have an evil side, but this book just rang so false. I don't think the author has done his homework whatsoever on interracial romance, or just black and white relations, period. Does the reader need to be bombarded with the race issue on just about every other page? It seemed that none of these characters could disengage from the race debate even for a second. The story didn't flow; it always seemed like poor social commentary.

What was most disappointing were the black characters in the book, the Welles' family was portrayed as borderline pathological-the black males (father and son) embodied the stereotype of angry black male. The black woman character Iris is something out of a racist white male's fantasy of what a black woman should be. She was totally docile and suffered black self-hatred. I couldn't believe one scene in the book when Iris was confronted by another black female student who wanted to know why she wouldn't join in the black after school group. Iris went off on this young woman and accused her of being no different than a white racist. Poor Spencer!

And Daniel, geez, the ultimate drip! Who cares what happened to him? I think him and Iris deserved each other and be miserable in each other's company. I don't believe they were in love, all they could think about was sex. Their relationship was based on borderline jungle fever. Cannot recommend. I'm so glad this didn't win the National Book Award.

Rating:
Summary: Not a Love Story
Review: This is my first Spencer book and although I'm coming late to the hype, I just have to comment. I enjoyed this book if for no other reason than it kept me reading. I tried to be open-minded and constantly reminded myself that it was a work of fiction, however, as a black woman I couldn't help feeling at times like I got slapped. First, I was never convinced that Daniel was in love with Iris (this was not a love story). Second, there were so many stereotypes in this book I started to predict them before the passages appeared. And finally, black women are once again portrayed as empty, machine-like sexual beings.

What could have been an outstanding love story was instead a typical account of what most people probably believe a relationship between a white man and black woman would amount to.