Annie John

By Jamaica Kincaid

Book Overview

The essential, urgent coming-of-age novel by Jamaica Kincaid, a reinventor of the form.

Since her first, prizewinning collection of stories, At the Bottom of the River, Jamaica Kincaid's work has been met with nothing short of amazement. The New York Times hailed her "prophetic power" and the Los Angeles Times Book Review said, "No one else seems to be writing quite this way."

With Annie John, the story of a young girl coming of age in Antigua, Kincaid tore open the theme that lies at the heart of her fierce, incantatory novels: the ambivalent and essential bonds created by a mother's love. In this book, written in Kincaid's lucid, elemental style, Annie John's ambivalence is universally familiar and wrenchingly real.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250322391
• ISBN13: 9781250322395
• Release Date: October 2024
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Moving story

Annie John is a portrait of a young girl growing up and the mother who is raising her to be a woman. Annie is at an age where she's experiencing both being a child and becoming a woman, and it's also the age where her mother is both her hero and the villain of her story. The back and forth, told so plainly by Kincaid, is a relatable coming of age story. It's also a lovely homage to her culture, and that culture influences both how Annie's mother acts at different points as well as how Annie receives her mother's actions and advice. I found Annie's story moving and understood the push and pull she had between loving and despising her mother for all that she was, and all that she wasn't. As Annie faces her own impending womanhood and the changes in her body that are bound to happen, as well as the emotional turmoil adolescence brings, she struggles internally and acts out externally. I felt her excitement, and I felt her pain. This story is a journey through that confusing adolescent time, through Annie's actual entrance to the world beyond her island.

One of the best books I have ever read

For those who think this book is boring, well hey I guess you had to be there. As a west indian-american I completly related to this book so much so that I got lost in it. The symbolism, the sadness of relationships lost are all apart of growing up in the Caribbean where you see one thing, and are encouraged to live a next. I truly enjoyed this book as I have enjoyed everything Kincaid has ever written, for those of you who haven't read Mr. Potter, please do!

I loved reading this book

I wanted to read some of Kincaid's fiction, and i most say Annie John was great. I love the humor in her books, and how the characthers seem to come alive. Annie John is about the relationship between her and her mother. It makes one think of there own relationship with there mother.

A coming of age novel that's actually about a girl

I thought this book did an excellent job exploring the relationship between a mother and her rapidly maturing daughter. It was extremely enjoyable. So truthful which makes this work very emotional.

An amazing novel

I read this book 3 years ago and it didn't really affect me very much, however, I had to study it for school this year and I now I love it. Annie's sudden detatchment from her mother and the effect that this abrupt change has on her home life and her entire concept of love, is fascinating.She moves from a world centered on her mother and love to a world of lies,hostility, pain and betrayal. The 'black thing' is decribed in such intricate detail that one is able to actually feel the pain and hate that annie feels towards her mother. Her struggle to free herself from her past and the heartbreaking walk to the jetty provide one with food for thought.

maybe only adults can bear to look back

Annie John is about a daughter in the throes of conflict with her mother. She is finding out about mortality and sexuality and that her mother regards her as rival for her father's attention. When a group of high school students read this book in my class eight years ago, the boys in the back row all whined about reading "girl stuff." Presumedly they're older now and would have some interest in the struggles of their mothers, daughters, sisters, and lovers... not to mention themselves. After all, don't we all go through a period of gaining vision and resenting it simultaneously? I was caught with the opening scene, Annie John sees people dressed in black and some in white bobbing in the distance. What is it? she asks her mother, who tells her it must be the funeral of a child since such burials are always held in the morning. "Until then, I had not known that children could die."