Girl Divided by Willow Rose

An entertaining but shallow reading, "Girl Divided" is a book that you will be able to read in a couple of warm afternoons, right by your window, while you enjoy the peace and the singing of the birds.

Something, Jetta, the hero of the story, won't be able to.

Jetta was born the daughter of a couple of black parents in the USA. But, to the surprise of everyone, her body was half-black, half-white, a line in the middle separating both halves. And pretty soon both her parents are killed by white supremacists. Jetta is taken care by her grandmother, who protects and hides Jetta, believing her to be possessed or a demon. And when Jetta starts her teenage years, a war between white and the rest start, with concentration camps, killings, betrayals...

It all sounds interesting enough (and more than difficult to tackle). And Willow Rose does a great job in setting the premise of the story, of creating a world and in creating interesting characters. It is easy to see she knows how to write and she writes well, with an easy to read and engaging style. However, the same cannot be say about the plot, where we encounter a story that sometimes moves a little bit slowly and sometimes it advances brusquely. Because of that, the world that Rose has created suffers, and it is difficult to believe some of the situations. The book starts quite nicely but around midway decides to take an unnecessary turn for the Gaiman-esque that does zero favor to the story. Maybe is this, a little bit sudden, change of pace, which took me out of the story a little bit. It does not make the book bad, but it makes it feel a little bit of a disappointment.

It is also difficult to have a clear opinion on the author's decision to pit a world between white and the rest, but where the rest are called black and all the other persons of color disappear and become invisible. It is a decision which I cannot agree with, however it may be helpful for the author to simplify things; it is lazy and, in my opinion, a mistake. It would be better to create a more varied world, more like a rainbow. Also, because of all of that, the characters don't have a very clear arc, and some of their personal characteristics become diluted in the overall plot.

Entertaining reading, but it could have been way more.