Rating: 
Summary: One of The Best Books I've Read!
Review:
Property takes place in 1820's Louisiana and tells the story of Manon
Gaudet, the wife of a sugar plantation owner. Manon has an idealized view
of marriage to a planter until she finds out that her husband has forced
Manon's slave, Sarah, to become his mistress and is the father of Sarah's
two children. Manon is devastated by the betrayal and becomes bitter. She
rails against the system that treats her as nothing more than the property
of her husband and wills her self not to have children.
Manon is freed from the oppressive grip of her husband when a slave revolt
occurs on the plantation. Manon's husband is killed and Sarah and her baby
daughter escape. Manon sells the plantation and moves to New Orleans with
Sarah's deaf son and two house servants. An inheritance from her mother
lets Manon be self sufficient in New Orleans and she focuses much of her
wrath towards the runaway Sarah, expending great time, energy and money in
attempting to bring her back to Louisiana. Manon is very intelligent and
knows the system of plantation patriarchy curbs her freedom, but she is
unable to let her self see that Sarah is also a victim of her husband and
of society, and she obtains great joy and satisfaction in tracking Sarah
down and bringing her back to Louisiana.
Valerie Martin's book is smart and extremely well written. The story is
captivating, and is unlike anything I have ever read. Manon is complex;
you do not like her but you can feel the pain of her husband's betrayal and
the limitations society has placed on her. Ms. Martin effectively is able
to portray the brutality of slavery in the United States, while at the same
time and with the same skill shows how the system restricted white women.
The book was outstanding and I would recommend it without reservation.
5 stars.
Reviewed by misrich
Rating:
Summary: a one-sitting read
Review: Valerie Martin's "Property" is so richly imagined, colorfully presented, all-engrossingly seductive, that you will want to set aside a block of time to read it all in one sitting. You will be swept back into the antebellum South, with all its contradictory conventions and entrenched attitudes that will seem so utterly foreign to many contemporary readers.
Many reviewers see Manon, the young white woman central character, as selfish, callous, and somewhat spoiled. I take another view; to me she seems pathetically limited, victimized by
the gender attitudes of the time; an unhappy, struggling creature.
This novel is a jumble of strong feeling, swift and consequential actions, broken taboos of all sorts,all of which combine to make a rip-roarin' read. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: The reality behind "Gone With the Wind"
Review: "Property" is a short, quietly brutal novel about the relationship between mistress and slave and husband and wife in the antebellum South. Manon Gaudet, through whose eyes the narrative unfolds, is an unhappy and ultimately cruel woman married to a perverse and insensitive husband. Raised in a slave-owning household and now mistress of one herself, she must deal with her husband's infidelilty with her own slave, Sarah, whose resentment is all too apparent. At her mother's death, she inherits enough to maintain herself independently, but discovers that, as a woman, she has no legal right to her own money and therefore no escape. She is as much chattel as Sarah, her slave. Manon gains her freedom when her husband is killed in a slave rebellion, but she herself is severely wounded and Sarah escapes. Ironically, her husband's death has left her independent, but not a rich enough piece of property to attract a new husband. She resigns herself to a fate on the margins of society and asserts her own property rights by engaging a slave hunter to recapture the runaway Sarah.
I wouldn't call "Property" a completely pleasant book to read, but it is powerful. .Martin has written her novel in a terse, matter-of-fact style. "Property" is not one of those books in which the heroine realizes the error of her ways and becomes a better person. Far from it--Manon is a product of her upbringing and is totally desensitized to her slaves' humanity. Her bitterness comes through in every line, and her self-absorption becomes increasingly claustrophobic as events unfold. At the beginning of the book, Manon seems like a potentially sympathetic character, but by the end she's as much a monster as her husband. She may not like her own lot, but she never understands the similarities between her position and that of her slave. Manon may envy Sarah's short-lived freedom and her temporary disguise as a free white man, but she never connects the dots to see her slave as equally human.
"Property" is a short book and a fairly easy read. But don't let this deceive you. "Property" will linger in your memory for a long while.
Rating:
Summary: Like a Car Accident - Grotesque but Captivating
Review: 'Property' relays the life experiences of Manon, the white wife of a Louisiana plantation owner during the time of slavery. Manon is disgusted by her husband but is hardly more sympathetic herself. The book expresses the hypocrisy and evils of slave ownership through Manon's petty distinctions between her vulgar, brutal husband, and her idealized view of her father. Ultimately, there are no hero's of this tale. Each character is uniquely flawed and human, and the beauty of this book is its realistic recreation of the time period without appealing to sentimentality or melodrama. This is an excellent book, and a very easy read. Like any good depiction of the human grotesque, reading 'Property' feels like watching a car accident, you are disgusted and appalled, yet you can't look away.
Rating: 
Summary: So what? Where's the feeling?
Review: As others have said, this book tries to explore the concepts of women (slaves and wives) as property. In itself, the idea is brilliant. It is unfortunate then, that the author merely skimmed the surface, producing a novel that seems uncertain as to what it's purpose is. In terms of plot, the story was quite simple - Manon is unhappily married, she is widowed and maimed during a slave rebellion on her plantation, and spends the rest of the book trying to recapture the runaway slave Sarah.
This simple plot arc would not have bothered me one bit, if the emotional side of the story had been meatier. Although the author mentioned time and again how Manon felt towards the slaves and her own predicament, it failed to rouse any emotion in me at all. It seemed to be just words on the page. Surely with a topic such as this, the potential was to arouse hate, shock, sympathy, sadness on the theme. The author has done none of these, and as such has wasted a good idea. As such, all I was left with was the feeling that this was an intellectual argument, an illustration of attitudes at the time, rather than an emotional journey. With the lack of feeling in the book, all that was left to redeem it was the plot, and as I have said, it was not very complex. If the book had been longer, with more events, it may have been alright despite the lack of feeling. At the end, I was still wondering about Manon's father's "failing", about what happens to Manon in the long term, what happens to Sarah and Walter. I had to assume their lives just carried on as before, and nothing that had happened changed them. This in itself could have been more powerfully reinforced to stimulate feeling - that Manon is not one bit altered by her experiences. But alas, the book just seemed to end. Full stop. In short, I finished "Property" thinking that the book had not lived up to it's potential. The one thought I had at the end was "So what?" I already suspected that slave owners felt the way this book describes. It didn't tell me anything new, didn't challenge me to re-examine my feelings and views on this, which it so easily could have done.
Rating:
Summary: A great short read...
Review: I was impressed enough with this book that I thought I would pass on my enthusiasm to others. Seems to be enough of that to go around. I can understand the reviewer from MD feeling frustrated with the main character, however I think it's more of a testament of the writers ablity to convey the alien emotions of slavery and survival. Can anything be more frustrating than a character (or society) willing to employ considerable intellect to ensure mutual internal destruction?
Rating:
Summary: beautiful
Review: I won't dwell on the story line of the book because I think other reviewers have done well. However, I do invite new readers to pay close attention to Ms. Martin's characters' roles. It seems Ms. Martin has taken the idea of reversing otherwise typical antebellum "positions" and turned it into pivotal points of interest--at least enough to hold the reader's attention. Manon's character crosses over into the role of the white master--she too suckles Sarah's milky breast: "I dropped to my knees on the carpet before her and rested my hands upon her wrists...This is what he does" (one could take those white "rested" hands "upon" those black wrists and see this too as a rape). In an ultrally "slighter" sense, Manon is put into the position of the black male slave--she becomes the chase: "I kept running...It was the black, the ground riddled with roots that tripped me and nettle grass that cut my feet like razors. I could still hear them behind me, still in pursuit...I bent down and plunged my hands into the cool mud, then smeared it over my face, my arms, and into my hair." Needless to say, the white mastress comes out alive, with a defected arm and some cuts on her face--none of which are inflicted by the revolters. And do we dare see a slight hint of motherhood in Manon as she allows Walter to sleep by the fire: "I let him sleep there once...and now he wants to do it every day. Rose says he always wants to be where I am." Ms. Martin also tampers with the role of the black female slave. Sarah "disguised as a white gentleman"--a "presentable" aristocrat named Mr. Maitre is a fresh literary experiment with character. Up North, Sarah's role changes again from white male to a free black woman---a traveled free black woman. The latter is something Manon realizes she will never experience. Aside from Mr. Maitre, white male characters in Ms. Martin's book are typical. I would even go so far as to say they are non-fictional. Though the book stretches out into a rare point of view, I found nothing wooing or unusual about the white male characters. As Manon's character is so onery, so conflicted, so miserable, these qualities deem her likable because she is believeable. The novel could have been much longer. Yet, "Property" is a captivating, fast read. Recommended!!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: Property was a very fascinating read. Reading this novel puts you inside the minds of slaves and their owners. This was my very first time reading anything by Valerie Martin. She has a very unique writing style.
Rating:
Summary: Unbeatable Read!
Review: This novel is so compelling, its first-person narration so rich, its examination of slavery so original that I devoured this book in one sitting. Miss Martin has captured the time, the place and the events of her story with incredible subtely and specificity and, best of all, a marvelous sense of ambiguity. One of the finest books I've read in the last several years.
Rating:
Summary: Unbeatable Read!
Review: This novel is so compelling, its first-person narration so rich, its examination of slavery so original that I devoured this book in one sitting. Miss Martin has captured the time, the place and the events of her story with incredible subtely and specificity and, best of all, a marvelous sense of ambiguity. One of the finest books I've read in the last several years.
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