Rating this book is not a simple task.

The first few chapters were chock full of prefaces, which was drudgery and disrupted the flow of the book. As the book progresses, we get to learn more about Kossula (Cudjo Lewis), the very last adult survivor of the last slave ship to reach American shores.

I highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by Robin Miles. I struggled with Kossula's dialect when reading the book, but I switched to an audiobook. From there, moving forward, I had no trouble understanding Kossula and the narration was spectacular.

I love how Hurston did not change his speech, and though Kossula frequently went off topic, her patience with him reaped many rewards. She described how she would show up some days and he would turn her away because of his job at the local church or simply just to tend to his garden, but she would patiently come back the next day or the next few days. She never once dominated the story, letting Kossula take the reigns even when she wanted to hear more of his enslavement years. At the end of the day, it's his story and that's how he wanted to tell it, so we must respect it nevertheless. His stories were still captivating, and at times I found myself teary eyed, because he truly lived through the worst of humanity, and he like millions of other slaves were robbed of the chance to truly live and see their homes again.

"I want tellee somebody who I is, so maybe dey go in de Afficky soil some day and callee my name and somebody dere say, 'Yeah, I know Kossula".

RIP to Kossula, and all those captured from their homes to be exploited by the white man. My heart will never stop grieving for them.