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Laurie Halse Anderson is such a diversely talented writer. She not only can craft beautiful narratives filled with great characters, but she can deftly weave in historical facts as well. So often in historical fiction the author tries to shoehorn in historical facts in what feels like a desperate attempt to prove that they have done exhaustive research and don't want any of it to go to waste. Anderson's novel is brimming with historical facts, but rarely do they feel out of place.

Anderson's story is heartbreaking, on multiple levels. It's a story of the search for freedom, and how it is so often stymied. The Americans are fighting a war for their freedom, but willfully ignore the plight of the slaves. It's heartbreaking to watch Isabel have her personhood and her freedom denied by everyone she meets. Isabel sees her family torn apart, the few friends she has in the world are horribly mistreated, and we the readers get to see bits and pieces of the historical narrative unfold at the beginning of each chapter with a snippet of writing from the era, often foreshadowing the event or theme of the next chapter. These add an additional layer to the story, as we get information that would never be available to Isabel, and are witnesses to some of the terrible hypocrisy of the time that leads and entire country to war for the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and yet systematically denies those rights to hundreds of thousands of people in the country.

Overall, this is definitely another page turner from Laurie Halse Anderson. It's set up for a sequel, and while I feel like this story is complete (I'm happy with not knowing every single detail sometimes), I'm certainly curious about what will happen next.