Like most of you I wasn’t very excited to start reading Mudbound, summer assignments are very low on my list of favorite things to do in my spare time. However, as I started reading I began to really get into the book! The southern setting and prejudice theme reminds me a lot of To Kill a Mockingbird which is one of my favorite novels.

I enjoyed reading Mudbound for numerous reasons one of which being the changing of point of view from chapter to chapter. I love being able to get into the mind of the characters and discovering what they might be feeling or thinking. Because of this, I really wish the author would’ve done a chapter or two from Pappy’s perspective. Throughout the book he was viewed as the “bad guy” and rightfully so. However I think there was a lot more to him than just being a grumpy old man. Why was he so grumpy in the first place? What caused him to have such a hateful heart?  He just seemed so bitter and angry all the time. I have a very hard time believing people are just born that way, there has to be some kind of story as to why he was the way he was.

A lot of people have mentioned how they hated Pappy, which leads me to believe that he was probably their least favorite character in the book. That is totally understandable, but my least favorite character was Henry by a landslide. That man grinded my gears, let me tell ya. My frist problem with him began at the beginning of the book when he left Laura and then decided to come back months later and asked her to marry him. What the heck!! You can’t just devastate a girl like that and come back and ask her to spend the rest of her life with you. Throughout the book it was very obvious that Laura was extremely insecure and I truly believe that Henry took advantage of that. He was more interested in pursuing his dream of farming than the well being of his wife. I’m all for the man being the head of the family, but he was so naive as to what was going on around him. Laura was starving for attention and acceptance so much that she hooked up with Jamie! She allowed herself to fall in love with Jamie because of her loneliness. Henry was TOTALLY unaware of Laura’s needs both physically and emotionally.

Ronsel and Jamie were definitely my favorite characters. Because of their experiences in WWII, they had a unique connection that no one seemed to understand. They shared a lot of similarities. For example, Ronsel and Jamie both had likeable personalities but at the same time they were both outcasts. Ronsel was disliked simply because he was black and Jamie was disliked because of his alcohol problem and hooking up with married women. No one cared that they risked their lives serving their country, people just saw them as troublemakers. Ronsel and Jamie could relate to each other’s struggles which is why they had such a special bond. Unlike most people in the south, Jamie began to see Ronsel as an actual human being rather than just some black guy that wasn’t worth anything. I think Laura began to think that too, considering her sympathy for Florence Jackson at the end of the book. I didn’t see Henry as an extremely racist person unless he was around Pappy. Pappy tended to bring out the worst in everyone, especially Henry because he was always trying to please him.

The main themes I picked up on in the book were desire and racism. Henry desired to fulfill his dream of farming. Laura desired Jamie or at least the attention Jamie gave her. They both gave in to their desires which of course resulted in consequences. The theme of racism was seen throughout the book in several different forms: through Pappy’s and others mistreatment of Ronsel, through Henry’s treatment of the Jackson family, and through Laura’s treatment of Florence when she first became her maid. Ronsel’s experiences of racism in the military were also mentioned.

I really enjoyed reading Mudbound, thanks Mrs. Hilliard for choosing such an awesome book!