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    Brass Ankle Blues
    Brass Ankle Blues
    Brass Ankle Blues
    Audiobook10 hours

    Brass Ankle Blues

    Written by Rachel M. Harper

    Narrated by Susan Spain

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Rachel Harper's debut novel has won praise for its vivid protrayal of a mixed-race girl coming of age in a family that's falling apart. Nellie's white mother and black father are breaking up. Nellie, whose black skin and blonde hair have always made her feel like an outsider, feels even more out of place traveling across the country with her dark-skinned dad, taking her white, sassy cousin Jess to meet her own father. But they might have more in common than they all think
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 13, 2012
    ISBN9781456123802
    Brass Ankle Blues
    Author

    Rachel M. Harper

    Rachel M. Harper, a graduate of Brown University, has been published in Chicago Review, African American Review, and the anthology Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers. She lives in California.

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    Reviews for Brass Ankle Blues

    3/5

    15 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 3/5
      I like Nellie and Jess a lot. Those two characters most assuredly carried the novel. There were so many ancillary characters that at times it was a bit confusing. I enjoyed the idea of the families spending the summers together and the interactions between the clan. Even though I find it unrealistic, (and quite scary in this day), I did find Nellie and Jess's journey to the lake house quite interesting to read. I wasn't sure how the marijuana fit into the story and I was a bit confused about Nellie's relationship with Dallas and Luke. It was definitely a story of Nellie's first journey into our unpredictable, some times dangerous, and often confusing world. The book also focuses a lot on mixed race but I didn't get that theme in book until close to the end with Luke's friend. Otherwise, I felt that it was hard to discern who was of what race during the story. To make such a statement with the title and such I would have thought race would be a more obvious part of the story.
    • 2/5
      There just wasn't enough of a story in "Brass Ankle Blues" to keep the book compelling. Nellie Kincaid is the young teenage daughter of a white mother and a black father. Her parents are on the cusp of a divorce and Nellie, along with her semi-delinquent cousin (who also has a black father and white mother) go to visit family. With race seemingly being such a significant aspect of the book, I had a dreadful time trying to determine who was black, white, mixed but looked black, mixed but looked white, etc. There were a few powerful scenes - the beginnings of sexual awakening, a couple of startling fires, and the discovery of a massive marijuana farm... yet none of these scenes really went anywhere or had much connection to each other. Rachel Harper's prose is beautiful. I hope with her next book she can find a story worthy of her talent as a wordsmith.
    • 3/5
      This is a book that I would gravitate to at the bookstore. I'm drawn to books that deal with psychological issues, family issues, emotional issues. This is a book I would definitely pick up, buy, and read. That said, I wished I could see Nellie's mother more clearly. At times, it felt like there were so many cousins and friends that it was tough to keep each one straight. I liked Nellie and Jess and her dad a lot. Nellie's relationship with the two boys seemed to go back and forth without much rhyme or reason. By the end, I could see that Jess had grown, but I was less sure about Nellie. The story never really reached a big climax, but that was okay with me; I liked the main characters enough to stick with them despite the lack of a strong driving plot.Because I am a librarian in a large school system with a very diverse population, I will enjoy telling others about this book. The biracial issues Nellie faced are issues faced by many Americans; I can see that teens as well as adults might like this book a lot.