Book Review: Forty Acres-Dwayne Alexander Smith

In Dwayne Alexander Smith's thriller Forty Acres, he attempts to take the reader on a ride through the brutality of slavery from the eyes of an empowered black person. There is a secret society of successful and influential Black men who retreat to Forty Acres often. After the main character, Martin, finds himself invited to be a member of this secret society, he quickly determines that it is not only morally wrong, but he must also attempt to free the slaves.

This book is truly a page turner and will have you on the edge of your seat. The way Alexander crafted the book in brief snap shot chapters, leaves you wanting more at the end of each and every chapter, and as a result you will just eat this book up.

As a whole, the Sistah's really seemed to enjoy Alexander's book, and as many of our meetings go, there were some Sistahs who were not fans of the book. Even those who were critical of the book soon changed their mind once we enjoyed several activities and discussion points. Our in depth discussions often present an opportunity for more layers of depth to be discovered causing some who were not into the text, to uncover new worthy meaning.

Kenya was the host of this months meeting where we noshed on pizza. Can anybody guess why pizza was the book clubs cuisine of choice? It has to do with a distinct event in the text. While we enjoyed our pizza, asked around to see who enjoyed this month's read and who did not. We also discovered who some of our favorite characters were, Damon by far was one of our faves, others found a favorite character in Carver.

After the opening discussion, we participated in the following activities:

Activity 1: Matching the husbands with the wives by name

Activity 2: Matching the Forty Acres Member with their corresponding profession

Activity 3: Design your very own Forty Acres

Activity 4: Each of the members acted as one of the characters in the book

Activity 5: One Sistah got a chance to act as if she were Dr. Kasim and have the other Sistahs ask her questions,

So to sum things up, this meeting was very fun and entertaining as always.

Join us next month when Sistah Julie will be hosting,. We will be reading Michael Eric Dyson's book Tears We Cannot Stop.