Book Review: Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson

February 23, 2015

About:
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson is a novel telling a story of a satirical coming of age story which the author uses as a platform for satire and social commentary. This is the first book I read by Mr. Johnson and I love his use of language.

The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book –to enter fill out the Raf­fle­copt­ter form at the end of the post.

  • 384 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0062302124

Book Review Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson

My Rat­ing for Welcome to Braggsville3

Buy this book in paper or elec­tor­nic format*

Thoughts:
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson is a funny and ambitious social commentary in which the author takes on the US class system, history, racism as well as southern and college culture. The story is also good and engaging and the language is brilliant.

Mr. Johnson manages to tackle tough issues with grace and humor using interesting characters and plot twists. This book would make an excellent choice for a book club, as there is much to discuss and address.

It took me about half the book to get used to the author’s language and writing style. I also felt that the excessive observations and points to be made slowed the plot and the storytelling. I also found it hard to follow the narrative, which switches from first person storytelling, to stream of consciousness writing and back again.

Welcome to Braggsville is an original, modern story, it is one of those books where I tremendously enjoyed parts, but also did not like other parts. When the author focuses on the main characters, it shines, but then starts to get cluttered up again. While the narrative was too burdensome for me to at times, I did find the satire sharp and the commentary on point, however I felt that somewhere in there, the story got lost.

Synopsis:
D’aron Davenport was born in the southern US and finds himself as a freshman in UC Berkley, another world for all practical matters. In a college party he meets three friends, Louis from California who wants to be a comedian, Candice, the obligatory college do-gooder and Charlie, and inner city teen from Chicago. The friends call themselves the “4 Little Indians”.

When D’aron mentions that his hometown has an annual Civil War reenactment, the group decides to stage a “performative intervention” to protest the event. The four, who think themselves important as all teenagers and young adults do proceed with righteous zeal not thinking about the consequences of their actions.

Buy this book in paper or elec­tor­nic format*

Give­away

  • Give­away ends: March 2, 2015

  • US/Canada Ship­ping Addresses Only

  • NoPOBoxes

  • Win­ners will have 24 hours to write back with their address, oth­er­wise an alter­nate win­ner will be picked

Congratulations: name as email

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer:I got this book for free from TLC Book Tours.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account

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2 Comments

  • MelissaFebruary 25, 2015 at 8:58 am

    I felt the exact same way about the book. It introduces many thought-provoking topics. But I felt that I had to weed through all of the slang and unusual grammar to get to the plot. It had the potential to be a really great story, but the language got in its way.

  • Heather J @ TLC Book ToursFebruary 26, 2015 at 9:47 pm

    I love it when an author’s language can be described as brilliant – it’s such a treat to read stories where the language just “works”.

    Thanks for being a part of the tour!

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