Unfortunately Vassar did in fact disappoint with their first year common reading book. I was excited to read this based off of the description because I enjoy queer, historical, and literary fiction. However...the writing was not it. It was hard for me to dislike the book because it dealt with such heavy topics such as slavery, racism, and homophobia. So what I will say is, I appreciate that it brought light to the experiences and stories of queer enslaved people who existed but who we often don't think about in the discussion about enslaved people and their disgusting treatment. It gave a new perspective on an issue we tend to think about a lot when talking about US History, specifically the systemic racism embedded into the history of the United States. My issue with the book is that off the bat, it came across as almost too lyrical and all over the place. I know what the author was trying to do, he was trying to create this dream-like, ethereal writing style but it just didn't work. Right off the bat I had an issue with the confusing writing style and this issue did not stop there. The relationship...oh it had so much potential but it just fell flat. We never really got any characterization of them or development of the relationship, we were just told that Samuel and Isaiah were in love and they were this great couple. I also felt like the switching around between POVs was too much because we never got to learn about the individual characters and there were too many of them for their perspectives to be developed. These issues with the writing and writing style made the book confusing and not enjoyable. I feel like the only characters we got to have real characterization and development of and who  I cared about were Maggie and Essie. Also Timothy's character was interesting. I also thought the ending was dumb and didn't really explain anything, and it felt over the top and dramatic....like there's no way that actually would have happened on a plantation in Mississippi. In short, I was disappointed by The Prophets and I'm kinda scared for when the author is going to come and give a talk to us.