Review by An_ubis77 -- Mixed Blessings by J.M. Muse

[An_ubis77]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Mixed Blessings" by J.M. Muse.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Mixed Blessings by J M Muse is a book set in modern day America but with a different history; one in which racism is still prevalent and people of color are still being oppressed. The book centers on different characters and how their lives are affected by the bias against people of color especially the African Americans. The spotlight is on Kublai Khan, the man who wants to see the blacks becoming a powerhouse by putting an end to the American government's method of classification based on race.

The author looks at racism from a totally different perspective from most people. Most books usually consider how discrimination affects a black person but almost never explores how it affects the people with parents from different races; this book does just that. The author wrote this story on a “what if” basis; what if some events of relevance in America's history never happened, how America would be like, the issues people of color might face and the solutions they are likely to consider.

There is a commendable level of consciousness displayed by the author that I really liked. He was able to write on lots of relevant issues facing America at the moment; most especially those facing people of color. Most of these sensitive topics would normally have been avoided so as not to offend people but the fact that the author not only wrote about them but made an interesting story out of it is impressive. I also liked how the book ended. There were no loose plots, every character’s story had closure and all questions were answered.

There were lots of things I disliked about this book; the first is that in an effort to include all relevant parties and issues, the author made the story too ambiguous and difficult to follow. For instance, the religion the main character practices is a combination of both Islam and Christianity, he was called a pastor and yet he greeted people the Islamic way, this was very confusing at first before I understood what was happening. There were also lots of violence in the book and most of it was gratuitous. The author put the characters or people close to them in violent situation so as to elicit a more profound and life changing reaction from the character. There is hardly any character in this book that violence didn’t touch their lives one way or the other. Another thing I disliked was that the author made other characters specifically unreasonable so the only perspective that would be logical enough to the reader would be the protagonist’s own, this seems like unnecessary bias to me. I believe the reader should have been left to choose which side to relate with, without the author’s interference.

Finally, I give this book a rating of 2 out of 4 stars because I couldn’t see past the ambiguity of the story, the gratuitous violence and the author’s bias towards some characters. This book was professionally edited, there were little to no error found. I recommended this book to readers over the age of 18 because this is a very graphic book with strong sexual contents and lots of profanity. Readers who enjoy books with religious and civil rights themes would enjoy this book.

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Mixed Blessings
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