Susan Straight’s A Million Nightingales is about young teen Moinette, who survives the Antebellum era of the old South. Enslaved, she is sent from one plantation to another throughout the book. I decided to quit reading this book about halfway through because it simply couldn’t keep my attention.
Compared to other well-written novels of the same time period such as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and numerous works by Toni Morrison, this book just wasn’t too great. The story of the “slave-girl” has already been mastered by the aforementioned authors, and this one didn’t even come close to being as exciting or remotely interesting.
I didn’t like the writing style, which was super simplified so we could better hear and understand Moinette. I understand literature is an art-form, and the style was intentionally harder to drudge through, but it was just too non-descriptive and bland. I also understand that readers are expected to use our imaginations to “feel” the novel, but it was boring. The pictures being painted of Moinette’s experience are fuzzy and not colorful enough to have kept me hooked until the end.
I will be curious to see what other readers think of this novel. I felt it was disappointing and a waste of time.
