Review: Clotel: Or, the President's Daughter

Clotel: Or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story was about as I expected but the writing was quite a bit different. Given the time period in which it was written I was expecting more flowery, Victorian prose. Instead, “Clotel” was written in a more straightforward style. And on audio, it came across sounding like a radio drama from the 40s. At times, the author started a new chapter with something like, “Recall that when we left Mary she was in disguise and travelling through territory dangerous to her.” I listened to the audio version of this book, and this kind of writing stood out. I found it comfortable listening, despite the content that had the expected level of tragedy and violence. The story itself was interesting in the situations depicted, although I found it a bit difficult to follow the character changes on audio. Reading might have helped in this regard.

View all my reviews