6/10

After looking at the other reviews for this book, it appears I’m in the minority. I wanted to love this book, I wanted to believe it was groundbreaking, as many others mentioned. But, frankly, I didn’t like the writing and couldn’t wait for it to be over.

I give credit to Tiffany Clarke Harrison in this, her debut novel. She took a chance at doing something different. Sometimes that results in a home run, sometimes a miss. For me? It was a miss.

Here are the two things that irked me:
1. It was written in the second person, which is just plain odd. I can’t think of any adult novel in which this works.
2. It seems like stream of consciousness, bouncing from one topic to the next so quickly I got whiplash.

The sad thing is that this is a really important and impactful story. The narrator is a biracial woman. Her parents and sister died in a car wreck. A black boy she knows was beaten to oblivion by police and is in a coma. And she and her husband are having a helluva time trying to have a baby.

It’s a study on the racism in this world and the struggle to bring children into the world while others are unfairly taken out of it.

I just wish the story were written in a way that I could’ve been invested in what was happening.

#netgalley #bluehour

While I loved the story itself (multi-racial woman dealing with her own fertility watching the police brutality around her), I was not a fan of the presentation. Short, stream of conscious type narration has never been a favorite of mine. I much prefer a more structured telling. Additionally, second person isn't a favorite of mine either. But, even my annoyance with the writing couldn't take away from the power of the story itself. Reading the dichotomy of trying to bring a new life into the world while watching another life leaving the world and trying to make sense of the situation is heavy stuff. The book is short but the story is one that will stay with me for much longer.

Blue Hour is going to be a "book of my life." By that I mean, a book that will stick with me for years to come! This is the best book I've read so far in 2023.

At only 160 pages, Blue Hour packs a punch. The prose is stunning and concise. I loved how short this book is, because I could tell how intentional the author was with every sentence she chose to write.

As a member of the infertility community, Harrison writes about miscarriage and stillbirth with such rawness. I found myself highlighting so many passages from this book and screaming YES to myself as I resonated with the narrator.

I could honestly go on and on and on about all of the amazing things accomplished in this debut novel. I am so thankful I received an ARC in exchange for this honest review. I am hoping this book receives all of the praise and hype it deserves!

This book gives the reader a barrage of beautiful words and images that somehow describe a tragic experience. For me it was almost too descriptive. A reader could stop and consider each and every sentence. It should probably come with a warning for sensory overload. Don't pick this book up to read unless you are prepared to enter her world and have all the feelings.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It is both exquisite and jarring.

The description alone led me to request this book. I was not adequately prepared for how vivid and heart-wrenching this story would be. It crept into the nooks and crannies of my heart and managed to expand it. The narrator, a biracial artist coping with multiple historical and present-day traumas, grapples with them in painfully human ways. She is imperfect, as we all are, and thus perfect in her depiction of humanity. Tiffany Clarke Harrison gifted us realness.

Thank you NetGalley and Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press, Soft Skull for the copy of Blue Hour. This was a short book that really packed a punch and I'm still recovering. The lyrical writing was gorgeous and the story was heartbreakingly powerful.

It’s difficult to find the right words to review this short book. Succinctly: it’s so incredibly moving. I don’t share life experiences with the protagonist and didn’t expect to connect with her, yet I now care for her so deeply. I was enthralled by her story and by Tiffany Clarke Harrison’s writing.

After Natasha Brown's Assembly, this is the only other book to be so brief and yet so moving, effective, and powerful in its message. While Assembly dealt with themes like workplace inequality in corporate spaces, the myth of meritocracy, institutional and social belonging, and colonization, this deals more specifically with police brutality and systemic violence against young black men, a problem that has become increasingly visible and endlessly heartbreaking. The author deals with themes of motherhood, ambivalence, not knowing how to parent and protect in the face of a society that will take the life right out of even the gentlest souls.

This short novel reads beautifully and effortlessly - despite the heavy subject matter, it's written well, I almost had the sensation of listening to an acoustic song, just coasting on the gentle melody of the protagonist's not-quite stream-of-consciousness account of events and emotions. The narration is very well done, almost cinematic. You can imagine the scenes as they happen, and the author has a gorgeous technique of seeming to hint at or evoke what the protagonist doesn't explicitly verbalize, and the reader understands it all the same.

I am sorry that the subject only becomes more relevant with each day, but I highly recommend this book - to everyone really, but especially anyone who is interested in viewing this endemic problem of institutionalized racist brutality through the lens of motherhood, powerlessness, grief, and anger.

Blue Hour is a raw and unflinching look at Black motherhood in America and, despite its short length, still so much more. Tiffany Clark Harrison's almost stream of consciousness writing style is reminiscent of Natasha Brown and Jenny Offill, making it a quick read but one that packs a punch and stays with you for days after.

This small book about big sorrow, plays with form in unexpected ways. It's a quick read, but too heavy to take in at one time.