Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 03/01/2021 *Starred Review* The year is 1860, and Madame Sylvie Guilbert of La Petite Cottage in Louisiana is hell-bent on sitting for a portrait—it’s the least she expects after the life she has been forced to live. Having no luck in securing her own social and financial standing, she instead has spent her time working to ensure the futures of her son and grandson, who have their own plans and desires, which have ultimately resulted in the demise of their family’s land. Together, three generations of Guilberts work against the backdrop of their family plantation, where stories of the big house and the fields alike are unveiled, revealing the not-so-segregated reality of Guilbert's expansive family. Equal parts history and tantalizing, chaotic drama, Williams-Garcia’s stunning novel delivers a fresh and nuanced approach to the tale of American slavery, which directly asks white folks, “Who were you without enslaved people and slavery? What are you without racism?” This shift away from the brutalization and abuse of Black bodies does not lessen the perceived severity of slavery, but, rather, focuses on the burgeoning American (read: white) identity and the tensions amid various cultural, regional, and national divides. Though the subject matter is particularly heavy at times (including descriptions of rape), as a whole, this is compelling in its ability to wrap readers in rich threads of family, romance, and the vibrant history of Creole Louisiana, and the depth of its characters will occupy space in readers’ minds well beyond the final page. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling, award-winning Williams-Garcia's return to YA, particularly with a book as monumental as this, is definite cause for celebration. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 05/01/2021 Gr 9 Up—In 1860, Madame Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier Guilbert rules Le Petit Cottage in the St. James Parish region of Louisiana with an iron fist. She is disappointed in her son, Lucien, who is experiencing financial woes in operating the plantation. She denies the existence and presence of her mixed-race granddaughter, Rosalie, whom she forbids in her home. She places all her hope in her white grandson, Byron, to continue their royal French bloodline and inherit their family vineyard in France. She suspects Byron is in love with fellow West Point cadet Robinson Pearce so she sets up his engagement to Eugénie Duhon. She abuses her enslaved girl Thisbe into total silence at her beck and call. She assumes etiquette lessons for tomboyish Jane Chatham, a planter's daughter who is uninterested in womanhood and focuses all her energies on her horse, Virginia Wilder, and the amount of meat in her meals. She looks forward to sitting for a portrait. However, her Old-World mindset begins to erode beyond her control. This is a wonderful character-driven novel as stories of the enslaved and the slaveowners are simultaneously told. Williams-Garcia does an excellent job in taking readers through France's colonial and revolutionary histories and their impact on Louisiana's development as a New World outpost. VERDICT This novel is a necessary purchase for conversations about slavery's legacy in the Black Lives Matter era.—Donald Peebles, Brooklyn P.L. - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.