Mirrors Of Life
by Neal Owens
🌕🌕🌕🌖🌑
I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review via the author. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Derrick Williams was born in poverty. At a young age he invested in small stocks and made himself a millionaire. From there he goes on to start a film company, their first movie being the story of Adam and Eve where Adam was black and Eve was white. The film is a success and Derrick finds himself with a lot more money. He then tries to build a black community with help from only black investors. The deeper Derrick gets into the project the more we see of the ugly underbelly that runs America. With hatred and racism coming from powerful officials Derrick must decide if is willing to risk all that matters to help build up the black community.
I hated Derrick. I feel like he was supposed to be viewed as an amazing individual but I feel like it was drastically overdone. Derrick walks around handing out jobs and money like they're candy. Family members he never met were suddenly debt free with no questions asked. While I understand in literature exaggerations can be made, I felt this was over the top. It made it so unrealistic and unrelateble that it really took away from the story for me.
There is a lot of death in this book. Derrick's mother, for example, loses multiple loved ones within the first few chapters. My personal issue with the deaths in this novel wasn't how they happened, it was the portrayal of how the characters handled them that turned me off. The grief over the lost lives was minimal. They just kept telling themselves there was something good in every bad thing and moved on. I think I was supposed to see strength through their Faith in God, which I did see, but the lack of grief took away from it because in order to see their healing I needed to see their pain.
For me, this book had its good and bad qualities. I really enjoyed the overall story. The author was able to make me feel a wide range of emotions. I felt everything from happiness to fear for the characters which, to me, gave them dimension as I was able to see them come alive. The writing itself was good. There were a few situations in which I found things to be very rushed and I would of liked to of seen things built up more. The main issues for me though were Derrick and the way certain things were handled. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book.
Derrick Williams was born in poverty. At a young age he invested in small stocks and made himself a millionaire. From there he goes on to start a film company, their first movie being the story of Adam and Eve where Adam was black and Eve was white. The film is a success and Derrick finds himself with a lot more money. He then tries to build a black community with help from only black investors. The deeper Derrick gets into the project the more we see of the ugly underbelly that runs America. With hatred and racism coming from powerful officials Derrick must decide if is willing to risk all that matters to help build up the black community.
I hated Derrick. I feel like he was supposed to be viewed as an amazing individual but I feel like it was drastically overdone. Derrick walks around handing out jobs and money like they're candy. Family members he never met were suddenly debt free with no questions asked. While I understand in literature exaggerations can be made, I felt this was over the top. It made it so unrealistic and unrelateble that it really took away from the story for me.
There is a lot of death in this book. Derrick's mother, for example, loses multiple loved ones within the first few chapters. My personal issue with the deaths in this novel wasn't how they happened, it was the portrayal of how the characters handled them that turned me off. The grief over the lost lives was minimal. They just kept telling themselves there was something good in every bad thing and moved on. I think I was supposed to see strength through their Faith in God, which I did see, but the lack of grief took away from it because in order to see their healing I needed to see their pain.
For me, this book had its good and bad qualities. I really enjoyed the overall story. The author was able to make me feel a wide range of emotions. I felt everything from happiness to fear for the characters which, to me, gave them dimension as I was able to see them come alive. The writing itself was good. There were a few situations in which I found things to be very rushed and I would of liked to of seen things built up more. The main issues for me though were Derrick and the way certain things were handled. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book.
Sorry this one wasn't quite what it could have been, but I'm glad you enjoyed it anyways!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm still really glad I read this as the good aspects were well worth the read.
Delete