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| Book cover Via Amazon.com |
Opinion
Today we are reviewing another Kindle Unlimited book that I found based on my recommendations. As many of you know, I love short stories, and Amazon saw I was reading Black History month classics. So I picked this short story up, and I honestly could not be happier. This, however, even though it is not a classical piece of literature as most of my #StayClassyFeb books, is one that I feel fits this week better than most. So I’m saying it’s a classic, and it’s my hashtag so there ya go.
Y’all I cannot stress how great this book was from the moment I picked it up. Initially, this story is about a woman who was a slave, and watched her entire family from husband to children picked off at an auction block. She found out one by one after being sold to a good master that her family died one by one in their various new places. It’s just heartbreaking how often this story took place in those days.
And yet, Clara is a bit of an unusual woman, because she was given freedom and a chance to start her life again, free.
I bring this up because at this very moment there are so many women, single women or widowed, who want to have a new life. Maybe something terrible has happened, and everyone wants a chance to start over.
However, for this specific case, imagine you’re 36, and your life has changed overnight. Though you miss your family, you now have an opportunity that most everyone else you know of or have heard of, does not. What would you do with it? I love this story for this. I love that the initial section gets right to the point; what would you do? Clara was a real woman, and like all real woman, she decided to live the best life she could.
Let’s go into some critiques for this novel and, as always, we are going to go from my scoring system for these critiques. For this one, though I am sure I sound like a parrot, we go to “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” and specifically, we go to the strange way that the book has tables with pictures but on the e-copy did not make that picture its own page. Okay, so I am fully aware it is VERY hard to make an e-copy look perfect when the actual book has all the margins and everything just right. I really do know this, I really do understand why. But I have also seen it done well.
So to all of you indie writers out there, please take time from the PDF to e-reader copy and check it. Go page by page, make sure your margins are clean, make sure if you have illustrations they are on their own page and test on other devices. Otherwise, it looks strange and can be confusing to the reader who may get half of a table on a one-page flip and the rest of the table as well as the picture, on the other page flip.
Aside from this issue, I want to personally thank Julie McDonald for having beautiful margins and indentations. Though there isn’t a lot of space between paragraphs, the indentations are spot on, and I loved the grammar, spelling and structure check that was done for this book. Bravo.
Let’s go into what I really loved about “Clara Brown,” and one of those things are the pictures. There is right off the bat a picture of a wagon that is similar to what Clara had. There are also very interesting tidbits of information that Clara had left in her diary in little tables on the side of the book. For example, there is a step by step instruction on how to wash a dirty shirt before there were washing machines or laundry detergent. I mean that’s very cool. Though I am sure lye soap would hurt like the dickens, I still am glad to know what to do in case of a strange camping trip, and that’s all I got.
I love that the author takes time to point out the historical places Clara visited. I truly know with the amount of work and love that was put into this story, that it has to be real. Clara is an inspiration to all women who are working toward a goal. I don’t want to give a spoiler, but I assure you the goal Clara had to get to Colorado is one that resonates with me. Were I in the same situation I would have done the same thing she did and worked on getting money and information toward my goal.
I enjoyed the captions that were on the photos for the context. I loved even the documents and things that mentioned Clara. Clara cared about all people and worked very hard to help all people. Given the review I did yesterday, this life Clara had is so very different than most of the freed or emancipated slaves, and yet, it’s because Clara did this. Clara knew where she was and came up with her ways to fix things. Clara focused on her faith and beliefs and cared for people in her life.
This is very important for us to focus on ourselves. I believe we all can learn from the example that Clara gives us to question ourselves and see what we want out of life. Do we do deeds that mirror the beliefs that we claim to aspire ourselves towards? Do we follow our own rules that we give to others, and take our advice we so freely give? If not, let’s look at Clara for the example because Clara not only had an abundant life with humanity but prospered with funds at times.
The last part I loved about this story is that the primary purpose for Clara came to be a reality. Clara's story is so encouraging and so beautiful to read and ponder on. Though the woman had come to terms that her goal may never happen, she finally got what she wanted, and it’s just amazing. This tells a whole story, and it is impressive. The good woman had earned her gifts. I enjoyed the wholeness of the story, both from a plot and narration point and also from the elements in the story. The pacing in the story is beautiful, and it had so much richness to the character.
I truly believe in my heart Clara is the kind of role model that all girls and boys can learn from. Work hard, work well, and do what you believe in, that’s her message. Accolades come, but Clara never was working for them, she was working to be happy in her heart and soul, and we should all be so fortunate.
Score
With all the math involved, I’m giving “Clara Brown: The Rags to Riches Story of a Freed Slave” a 90/100 which is a five-star review for Goodreads and Amazon. I feel this is so beautiful, and it’s easy to read.
