This definitely wasn't an easy read. The writing was so compelling. The time-travel element still boggles my mind. When her ancestor is in danger, that triggers & summons her to the past. But only when she is in danger, or experiencing immense fear, she can yeet herself back to the present - and nothing about the why or how. At some point I was wondering if this will take a turn like the Ministry of Time & if Rufus would come with her bc of how much he disliked his father's beatings (at first). Then I feared he would do that bc of how much he was obsessed about Dana leaving him.
I didn't realize Kevin was a white man until she pointed it out when she narrated their backstory. I also didn't realise how this relationship-dynamic would play out in the past when they both time-travelled. And how it would change slightly until the Storm. I feel like Kevin didn't quite understand his privilege when they worked on Weylin's plantation together until he was stranded in the past. I think what I liked the most about Dana was her resilience. She was mostly reasonable although I wished she killed Rufus a numerous time until she finally did (the ending was ironic considering most of her "missions" of the past was to save his ass). I felt for her when she was in a catch-22 situation - to deliver the message to Alice that Rufus wants her & to standby & watch how he treats her and to not kill him before Hagar is born.
I was kinda annoyed at Dana when she was still calling him Rufe despite all that he put her through. Like he already thinks he owns you stop being so friendly. I appreciate complicated characters. Rufus's treatment of Alice and Dana was ruthless and brutal, yet she was unable to demonize Rufus. This is rare but this book made me care about side characters too : ( (not the weylin fam). The book had me at the edge of the seat. I cant wait to read her other works
I found myself shrieking several times, the descriptions of the beating were truly horrendous and it was almost like I could feel the blows and I read it. Time travel is tricky for me and doesn’t always work but I felt Octavia’s representation was quite seamless and well done. While yes, one part did kinda irk me how it wasn’t consistent on how much time passed - like the last part she spends two weeks in the 20th C but only 3 months had passed in 19th C but the time when Kevin got left behind, 5 years had passed by and only 8 days in 20th C. I loved Sarah, I wish we could have spent more time with her. It was really interesting to see the dynamics between all of them, specially between the slaves.
The ending with Rufus openly saying that Alice and Dana were basically the same person to her just shows that he truly never saw them as more than slaves and his property. Dana saved him countless times, helped him the entire time she was in the past, and he still couldn't change his mind. I believe those months she spent in the past were extremely important to him, but at the end of the day, he spent way more time alone "in his time", and that had a bigger influence. Dana tried, even Alice tried a little bit, but he was doomed to failure from the start.
I kept wondering why that particular instance was left a little inconsistent and whether there’d been a particular reason for it (as apparently almost everything felt quite purposeful in this novel) I loved how the author portrayed complex emotions and feelings, the way Octavia managed to get me to empathise and really feel everything faced by Dana. The subtlety of her emotions in seeing how well Kevin was sort of assimilating into the 19th C, the inner fear too that she didn’t necessarily express but felt implied in a way. I also felt like the heavier themes were written well, like there was just the right amount of subtlety to show the norms of then and the norms of now. I mean Dana lived in the 70s and those times weren’t all too great either and I felt the author did wonderfully in portraying a now that is like almost 50 years ago to us currently yet still a lot more comprehensible and relatable to us than a 100 years further. This was a super heavy and difficult read for me but I’m so glad to have read and experienced it.
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