A fantastic and insightful read, I would recommend Wake by Rebecca Hall to anyone. A graphic novel was an excellent way to tell the narrative.

The author and historian, Rebecca Hall writes about her journey to uncover truths of women-led slave revolts. I don't normally read graphic novels but I must say I learned a lot from this one. The historical events are interesting, but it's eye opening to read the hurdles the author faced not only trying to access historical documents but once given access how little information was recorded. Although a few instances of visceral imagery, the illustrations were a bit underwhelming, maybe because it's black and white, or maybe because it's not a normal genre for me. Overall I was really impacted by this memoir, graphic novel.

Thank you to Rebecca Hall and publisher, Simon and Schuster for giving me access to an advanced readers copy.

4.5 / 5 STARS

"WAKE" by Rebecca Hall is a truly unique work. A mix of memoir/historical fiction/non-fiction presented as a graphic novel is something I haven't seen before. These are such important stories about Black women, the changemakers who have helped shape history - stories that everyone, especially young women, need to hear.

Hall strikes a very impressive balance between what little has been recorded, the narrative she was able to piece together, and inclusion of personal anecdotes and family history. This was clearly a very personal project for Hall - the part where she was calling on her paternal grandmother for the strength to continue broke my heart. Discussing the challenges she faced when trying to uncover this hidden history was infuriating, not just due to how little information was available, but how many people tried to physically keep her from accessing them at all. A very clear reflection of how much history has been erased by White historians and how they still feel a duty to gatekeep their histories and archives.

Personally, I wasn't crazy about the art style. There were some images and sequences that I think were really well done and captured Hall's story, but overall it wasn't for me. Did it take away from my appreciation of this book? Definitely not!

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARc for review through NetGalley/Edelweiss. Trigger warning for racist and misogynist violence, including rape.)

Dr. Rebecca Hall's first career was as a lawyer: educated at Berkeley, Hall served as a tenant's rights lawyer for eight years. The avalanche of racism and sexism she faced eventually led Hall down a different path: "to get at the root of what was warping the world." She decided to go back to school to pursue a doctorate in history, with a focus on "the history of race and gender in America." Her dissertation, which would culminate in this graphic novel some twenty years later, centered on women who led slave revolts.

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Unsurprisingly, her battle was an uphill one, since these women have largely been erased from history. For example, four women were involved in a 1712 slave revolt in New York City; while their names - Sarah, Abigail, Lily, Amba - made it into the public record, their testimony did not, save for this cryptic entry: "Having nothing to say for herself than that she had previously said..." Coverage of a 1708 uprising, also in NYC, which ultimately "resulted in the statutory framework that shaped slave control, and was a crucial linchpin in turning New York from a society with slaves into a slave society," referred only to the leaders as "Indian Sam" and "the Negro Wench" or "the Negro Fiend."

Other times, the keepers and owners of the records threw up their own roadblocks: upon requesting records pertaining to the slave trade at the British parliamentary archives, Hall was told that no such records exist (!). Lloyd's of London, which got its start insuring slave ships, outright refused her access (at least in part due to fears of well-deserved litigation).

Given these challenges, WAKE: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN-LED SLAVE REVOLTS is equally a story of Black women's resistance against the brutality and inhumanity of slavery - and a look at the heartbreaking and often tedious work of historians, especially those excavating atrocities that so many would rather bury, ignore, and outright deny. Hall's story is further informed and inspired by her own familial history: her paternal grandmother Harriet Thorpe was born into the shackles of slavery, but died a free woman.

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WAKE is both harrowing and illuminating, hard to read and yet impossible to put down. Though precious little is known about women-led slave revolts, through "a measured use of historical imagination," Hall imagines who these women were, who took up arms and resisted their captors, both on ships during the Middle Passage, and in the Americas. She also interrogates the toxic milieu of racism and misogyny that kept them in chains - and then disappeared them from history.

WAKE would make an excellent addition to high school history classrooms. In just three pages (see: 134-136), Hall taught me more about the nuances of the Atlantic slave trade than I learned in four years of high school. Likewise, the only slave revolt I can remember from AP History was the raid on Harper's Ferry (cynically, I can't help but wonder if it's because it had as its face a white man); never could I have ever dreamed of learning about revolts led by women. Her entries on the burning of women for treason as well as the increased likelihood of slave revolts on ships carrying more women (surprise!) are simply amazing and make me want to know more.

Seriously, can this become a miniseries on Netflix or something?

Hall's exhaustive research and passionate storytelling is complemented nicely by Hugo Martínez's illustrations. Part of me wished for color, to further pull the story into the present, but the art is captivating just the same.

This was a powerful book that bridges the gap between history and today. It shows the work that goes into a true historian's life and the value of the truth they uncover. There are times when the story gets a bit convoluted, but given the numerous threads it weaves together, any small missteps become easy to forgive.

“I am a historian, and I am haunted.”

Rebecca Hall’s “Wake” is a heartfelt memoir and history lesson, but it is mostly an outpouring of hurt, trauma and pride for the hidden history of women-led slave revolts. This memoir and, frankly adulation, to the power of Black women strikes a resonant cord after the rise of Black Lives Matter and the call for national reconciliation of racism and slavery that built the United Staes.

The reader cannot help but get angry at the American school system for how much they gloss over these subjects in history classes, how these women’s stories were eradicated from records, and that fury builds as Hall shows that even today, the system works to erase Black women, their power, and their agency.

Hall’s journey is heartbreaking. You see her not only balance the struggle and tragedies of her own life as a Black woman fighting to be seen and heard, but her ancestor’s trauma as well. We see her break down and pray to her grandmother, who was a born a slave — a reminder of how few years have really passed since slavery ended.

It does a beautiful job illustrating just how much information about slavery is lost because white people, the people who control the narrative, have covered it up, brushing it aside as a blemish on their history even though they profited and are still profiting from it today.

The illustration work on this graphic novel is arresting. Hugo Martínez’s work is gorgeous, using water, reflection and architecture in ways that highlight the memoir’s words and clever tricks to flesh out Hall’s assertions that this world was built on the backs of Black lives.

But most importantly, this book is about empowerment and resilience. Despite the missing information and the concerted attempt to keep these stories from surfacing, we see Hall uncover these secret histories of Black women taking their own agency and fighting against their oppressors — an impressive feat two-fold since Black women sit at the conjunction of two minority and oppressed groups.

“Wake” is a gorgeous exploration of the power Black women have and how they’ve had to fight for it. As Hall says, there is a reason that “the more women there were aboard a slave ship, the more likely a revolt.”

this powerful graphic novel is told from the perspective of author rebecca hall, a historian who says she is haunted and hunted by the past. we follow her investigation of the many black women who planned and led slave revolts; a piece of history that has been continually erased and forgotten.

my only critique would be of the art style. it's very creative and inventive, but not particularly pleasing to the eye. nonetheless, there is some amazingly powerful imagery here.

the book's blend of history and historian's memoir is just right. not only is there a lot to learn about the woman warriors who led slave revolts (both on transport ships and once they were in the US), but this book shows just how much work goes into uncovering history once it has been erased.

hall talks about slavery as a trauma that the US has undergone; and not very long ago. when we are able to heal from trauma, "it becomes a part of us that we acknowledge, and provides understanding of our world." this goes for all of us living in the wake of slavery. i highly recommend this book as an opportunity to learn from and acknowledge this history.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I want to start off by saying that the way this graphic novel was illustrated was absolutely brilliant. I loved that when it was present day, there were flashes of slaves revolting or nooses and it was extremely impactful.

As a historian, I thought this was a really important take on the importance of women in history and how they have impacted so much of history and yet they are never discussed. I believe this would be a new way for high school students to learn about slavery and the middle passage.

I believe that everyone should read this graphic novel because there is atleast one thing in this story that you don’t know and that is why it is so impactful.

Tw: talk of rape, sexual assault, murder, slavery, beating, racism, hanging, burning, whipping

I LOVED this! From the images that reflected slavery and history to walking through her story as she researched female slave revolts. This was beautiful, heart-breaking and I learned so much. I cannot wait to see what else Dr. Hall does!

This is an area of history I know very little about, so I am grateful I was given the opportunity to read and review this book ahead of time. Not only is the illustration powerful and beautiful, the content is immersive. Once you start reading this book, it's difficult to stop, even though the content is a tough subject. Hall does an incredible job bringing to life her research, and adds in bits of memoir reminiscent of "Good Talk". I would absolutely recommend this book, especially for use in high schools.

I loved this book. "Wake" is a dual narrative - both the story of slave resistance and often-overlooked role of women in rebellion, and the story of a researcher trying to uncover that history. Weaving the two together made for a compelling, at times haunting story, not just about the history of slavery, but about the way racism, patriarchy and white America's unwillingness to acknowledge its own past make uncovering that history a challenge. Learning about the reasons women were particularly likely to revolt on slave ships was fascinating.

The black and white art made the story more powerful and worked well with the narrative - simple, stark and effective.

I received an ARC through NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions my own.

This graphic novel is a very interesting take on history. The author is a lawyer and historian and her goal is to find documentation of slave revolts led by women. Hall herself is actually a character in the book. It shows her researching and digging and trying to find whatever evidence she can. Interspersed with this is the documentation found, and the stories of these women. Some of it is told simply in facts, and some of it is told in reenacted conversations. I think all of this makes for a very digestible history lesson, and this would be a great addition to a classroom curriculum.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I loved the graphic novel! It was so important in that it showed off the lives of influential women! I personally was not a huge fan of the art style but otherwise, this was an amazing book!

This is a must-read.

I look forward to seeing what else this author publishes in the future.

A graphic novel which is part memoir about doing research, and what the author found from her research.

In this book, the author brings history to life by crafting plausible stories about the revolts. This is a must-read for history buffs, research lovers, and anyone who wants to learn more about what happened in the past. This book would be an excellent source of teaching children in the classrooms.

Amazing. Wonderful. A beautiful book in both word and image. Wake is well worth sharing with young adults and adults for study and appreciation.

The concept and execution for this book is great! As a lover of graphic novels, it’s a medium that’s not used enough.

You can tell the author did her research (even when rebuffed or hitting a dead end) and is passionate about the subject. While I wish there was a tad bit more emphasis on the actual revolts, this is part memoir and I won’t hold the author accountable for wanting more.

I would love a follow up novel though.

The art is spectacular, and this told of a history I didn’t know. Valuable for any library to add to its collection.

A masterpiece!
Hall does an excellent job of piecing together the bits of history that others have spent so long trying to repress.
There were many more avenues of interest opened up from this book.
Bringing to light both the history of women's roles in society and how slavery shaped many of the foundations that we still live with today, this book is a must read!

This book was really fun and easy to read. It was such an empowering book because it was about women and the history behind African-American women who were enslaved back then. It was really nice reading this book in first person point of view because we got to see the historian thought process when discovering what happened years ago and what was the story behind what took place. I also like that we also got transported into time to the event the historian was trying to uncover to see what actually happened. The artwork in this book was awesome but sometimes I got lost on where I was suppose to be reading because there was no indication or it was just an illustrated image and then the text, which made it hard but other than that this book was a short and inspiring story that anyone can read and at any age.

Wake is part memoir and part historical events. Rebecca Hall is a professor doing research on women leading slave revolts. It depicts her struggles and road blocks in trying to find this information whether security is preventing her from going into the archives to find the truth or because past historians didn't deem some things as necessary to write down. I think putting this type of content in a graphic novel is great because it's easy to read through and you still learn from it. I actually learned a lot from this novel, It's full of a lot of emotion from tears and rage as we learn about the women fighting for their lives. I think this is an important graphic novel and would definitely recommend people to check this one out.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review.