Silver Sparrow – Tayari Jones – Bookrush 18

Blurb:
‘My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.’

This is the story of a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle. James Witherspoon has two families, one public, the other a closely guarded secret. But when his daughters meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows the truth. Theirs is a relationship destined to explode.

My Thoughts:
I’m going to be honest and say it did take me a bit to get into this book, but once I was in I was fully in!

This book follows the lives of Dana and Chaurisse, they both have the same father but only Dana knows this, Chaurisse and her mother Laverne think that James is loyal and faithfull, however Dana and her mother Gwen know otherwise.

The first half of the book we hear Danas’ side of the story about her her mother and father met and how she came to be and finding out that James was married to another woman and she has a sister. But James tells Dana that Dana is the secret.

The second half of the book we hear Chaurisses side, we learn about how her 14 year old mother became pregnant with her and had to get married to James. We also watch as both Chaurisse and Laverne find out about James’ indescretions.

I don’t think I had a favourite character at the end of the book, at first I sided wth Dana and Gwen but I think that’s because we hear about their side first, but once we learn about Chaurisse’s side then I think it I realised, the situation isn’t fair on either of the girl or their mothers.

What I really found interesting was that, yes there was anger towards James, but the two wives seemed more to blame each other and the girls as well seemed more angry at each other and each others mothers than James. And I feel like that is a true reflection on the real world, women are always competing with one another and nt actually helping one another.

Sadly, but realistically this book doesn’t have a happy ending, I think that if it had a happy ending it would have been too neat, and we all know that life is not nat and tidy. Life is messy!