I'm currently finishing up James by Percival Everett, and . . . I'm greatly disappointed with the last quarter of the novel. The main thing that disappoints me though is the handling of black women. They are almost non-existent in the story aside from being sexually assaulted or a plot device for the main character. It left a bitter taste in my mouth when the only prominent black female character that was introduced was only regarded as the little girl who was raped and abused by her slave owner and how her young face was so reminescent of James' daughter and the terrible things she could experience, then when she gets killed by her enslaver, the men around her regard her death as freedom in her own words even though we never learn what freedom appeared like to her. For a novel bent on transforming a character from a dated novel in a more nuanced way, it plays into the very limitations to its (barely there) black female characters.