 Welcome to church of the chair where you can't always get what you want. I'm your host E and today you just might find you get what you need. Today we're talking about salvage the bones by Jesmyn Ward, winner of the national book award in 2011. I am a huge Jesmyn Ward fan boy. I have read all of her fictional novels so far. I've not read the nonfiction nor have I read her short stories but I'm a massive fan of hers. I loved where the line bleeds which is her debut novel and I also loved sing unburied sing. She won a national book award not only for the book we're talking about today salvage the bones but she also won a national book award for sing unburied sing. Her new book comes out in October and it's called let us descend and I am super stoked for that one. Now if you're wondering why I used the song lyrics I did in the intro that's because I went into this book with certain expectations you can't always get what you want. I went in with the expectations that this was a novel solely about Katrina and the aftermath an impoverished family living through that scenario but that was not the case at all. There are 12 chapters in this book and only two of them the last two which are both 22 pages long. Those are the only sections in this book about Katrina and that that really floored me because I expected from everything I read on Wikipedia and from Ward herself talking about the book she wanted to write a book about Katrina because it was falling out of the public eye and still to this day there are people still living in FEMA trailers because of that storm. Now even though it didn't I guess live up to my expectations that does not mean I did not absolutely fanboy over this book I did and I will tell you why in a second but I do find it interesting there's even a blurb on the on the inside right here before you even start the book from Kate Tuttle of the Boston Globe that says the first great novel about Katrina. I don't really consider this a falsehood is it a little bit of misrepresentation of what the book is about I would say yes because the story isn't really about Katrina and the aftermath and rebuilding and all that stuff which is what I was looking for it is a story about an impoverished family and all the struggles that they have so let's get into the characters. First off you have Daddy who is a single father he's a widower his wife passed away during childbirth of their fourth and final child junior then there's a 15 year old girl the story of salvage the bones is told through her point of view and her name is Ash then you have I believe it's the oldest child Skeeta who has a who has a pit bull named China that he fights so they're not he doesn't fight but he fights the dog at dogfights so there's trigger warnings for animal cruelty and dog fighting but Skeeta does not treat the dog poorly other than this is going to sound bad no matter how I say it is a very loving relationship between Skeeta and China even though he uses her to dogfight so but I need to give you a warning there is a very long detailed scene of a dogfight and there's also puppies who die throughout the entire book that's not a spoiler that's actually on the back in the description on how the puppies slowly die one by one so if those types of things trigger you definitely stay away from this book and then you have Esha's brother Randall who is wanting to go away to basketball camp and become I guess an NBA star and then you have the youngest one junior I loved how every single one of these characters had their own personalities their own wants their own their own their own stuff that they were going through it's a beautiful story but then when you add in on top of that the friends and the peoples that surround them who are also beautifully layered and wonderfully just flesh and blood like Manny who and who gets 15 year old Esh pregnant which is what we're going to talk about next there is also big Henry a big lovable man that obviously has feelings for Esh even though she doesn't quite realize it and then you have Rico who has who's the one who bred china with his dog kilo and that's where the puppies came from I would say eight out of the 12 chapters of this book is all about this family and their inner workings how they come together during crisis crises whichever how they come together how they drift apart how they protect each other even when they're mad at each other the most poignant scene in the book for me the one that really really got to me and will live on in my memory for ages is a scene where two things are happening at once they are trying to tear down a fence daddy junior Randall are trying to tear down a fence and daddy has the boys you know working the tractor while inside the barn they're they're trying to tear down the fence so that they can board up the windows because Katrina's coming and daddy knows how bad it's going to be but nobody will listen to him so it's that thing with the old head saying hey we need to prepare and the kids being like it ain't going to be that bad and everyone else in the town saying it ain't going to be that bad and it's going obviously Katrina was absolutely devastating but in this scene you have the outside what's going on outside them trying to tear down this either it's a board board wall or fence or something and it's got barbed wire wrapped around it all different kinds of things that make it a dangerous situation while inside you have China the dog the pit bull skittish skittish pit bull and he's trying to keep her healthy after giving her Ivan Mekton which has been the news a lot recently you know why uh Ivan Mekton and uh he his friend Manny talks him into mixing it with bacon grease and the dog starts to get sick and something happens that is a I don't I don't want to say it's an allegory but there's these two things happening at once and reading deeply you can see the metaphor for each one of those things and how they come together now every single chapter is like this but that was the most poignant one for me what happens to daddy what happens to China what happens to one of the puppies and even what happens with ash seeing the scene that she sees because she's in the barn with skita while this is happening I'm trying to remain spoiler free I've probably given too much information already but that scene alone I haven't told you what happens but that scene the way that scene ends is devastating heartbreaking and utterly affecting it is my favorite scene in the entire book now of these 12 chapters most of them are between 15 and 30 pages long the book blows right by if you don't know I look for three things in a book it needs to have great characters great pacing and great dread and I felt that all throughout this book especially since I was expecting Katrina to hit at any moment in time because of the blurb on the front of it and the interviews that I watched with ward I expected this to be more Katrina heavy and it wasn't there's only two chapters only 44 pages about Katrina all the rest of it is build up we do get a dog fight scene like I mentioned in the trigger warning it's very graphic very brutal but at times it is also beautiful there is a line that's repeated over and over again make them know that literally sent chills up my spine and gave me goosebumps I got goosebumps right now just talking about it it's an amazing scene of fiction I I I really cannot I could sit here for hours gushing about this book and it's no wonder that it won the national book award in 2011 and yes this is part of my series I'm going through all of the national book awards finalists and I'm reading the winners also I have two more left I have the tiger's wife and I have binocular vision which I'm saving for last because it's a short story collection I'll probably read that while I'm reading our share of night by Mariana Enriquez that one is the one that won for time with a tome so I'll be moving on to that one next I'm already 60 pages well I'm not moving on to it I'm already in it I'm 60 pages into it and I'm enjoying it but with this book I if you're looking for a book solely about Katrina this ain't the book for you if you want a almost a family saga that takes place over the course of 12 days each chapter is a new day if you're looking for something like that with flesh and blood characters believable premises a believable premise if you're looking for something like that and you're looking to have your heart broken and also to to give yourself hope for humanity I definitely suggest you read this book the last thing I want to talk about and this might keep some of you away it definitely turned my stomach but there are at least two scenes at least two scenes of graphic sex between a 15 year old girl and a boy not much older I believe he's still a teenager but between Ash and Manny there are at least two sex scenes that you need to be aware of I felt wholly uncomfortable reading them they are written in such a way that Ash the character she enjoys it in fact later on in the book Manny says that everyone in her family knows she's a slut but it's all about connection which it usually is with a with a kid that young it's usually not about the sex it's more about looking for connection and in this way it it bothered me but all good fiction is affecting so I would I'm not going to take off any stars or anything for that but it was a chore to read because I didn't want to be picturing and I'm a very visual person I didn't want to be picturing a sex scene with a 15 year old girl whether or not it was consensual I just don't like that but otherwise I have nothing bad to say about this book it's an amazing read I read it over the course of three days blew right through it it's 260 pages you can do the math yourself I blew right through it loved every page of it except for you know the scenes that made me feel awkward especially the one that happens in a bathroom later on I also enjoyed how her family how Esch's family comes together over the pregnancy at the end once they all find out I was expecting something far worse because daddy is not a nice person you know a hundred percent of the time he likes to drink you get when he gets in his cups man he's he's a pretty vile individual but I love the way jasmine ward handled the ending and it gave me some hope for this family and it does end on what I would consider a cliffhanger because you don't know what happens to one one character I would say I'm not going to say who or what it is but you don't know what happens there and it's left completely open but my heart was heavy at the end but it was also filled with hope because of the way that the family reacted toward the the news that Esch was pregnant because these stories do not always end that way and most of the time most of the time they don't end well at all but that's all the time I have for you today have you read salvage the bones by jasmine ward or anything else by this author if you have let me know what you thought about this book or any of the other ones down there in the description down there in the comment section and if you let me know if you're excited about let us descend that's coming out in october I'm super stoked for that one and I'd like to hear from you guys about it as well but until next time I'll hell the chair