I don't usually review books that I was unable to finish simply because I think it's unfair to the author of me to do that. However, I will review this one because I thought there were some interesting and compelling points to the book that other readers might want to look at...I simply found the writing too annoying to want to continue.
Douglass' Women tells the story of Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna Murray and his mistress Otillie Assing. Assing was a German-Jew who immigrated to America and became interested in the abolitionist cause upon arrival. Anna Murray is a free black woman who helped secure Douglass freedom and then married him shortly thereafter. The women are polar opposites in race, education, and personality but both love the man Frederick Douglass for their own reasons.
That was the interesting and compelling part of the book. This is the seed of the book that I think could have flourished (and did for a lot of readers as the reviews are typically very good); however, for me, the writing styles between the two women's narrative/diary sections is so similar that I couldn't get a feel for either of them as an individual person--I guess I felt too strongly Rhodes coming through her characters rather than the other way around.
Recommended to readers who like historical fiction and 19th century American literature.
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