The novel Chains by Anderson is about a girl named Isabel and her sister, Ruth. They previously lived with their mother, but she died of the plague. They were then captured from Rhode Island and taken as slaves to New York City.

The novel is set in New York, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the war of America's fight for freedom. This greatly links in with the title of the book, Chains. Isabel is a slave and she wants to be free, America is a country and wants to have independence. I think what the writer is trying to get across is that, if a whole country can buy or fight for their freedom, why can’t an individual?

Isabel, while being a sister, a friend and a slave, she was also being a messenger. Isabel, while fetching the water for the day at the Locktons' house, she would speak through the window of a jail to her friend, Curzon, and give him food. He was captured because he was a soldier involved in the war. She would also send them messages from Captain Morse to the prisoners.

‘“Here,” he handed me a loaf of bread.

“You made me come up for this?” I asked.

“Take it to Dibdin,” he said fighting a smile. “There’s a not baked inside.”’

Slaves in this time have no rights at all, so when the Lockton Madam says she sold Ruth; Isabel cannot do anything about it, no shouting, no time off from her chores, and she can’t even cry.

‘”Where is she? What did they do to her?”

“She’s gone,” Becky said.

“Gone?” I repeated. “Gone where?”

Becky studied her shoes again. “Sold.”’

Even though Isabel knew she couldn’t rebel at all, she lashed out at her Madam and therefore got taken to court. Her punishment was to have the letter ‘I’ burnt into her skin, ‘to alert people to her tendencies and serve a reminder of her weakness’ this is what Madam Lockton wanted everyone to think and she wanted so deeply to hurt her slave. ‘The spark kindled on my cheek flared and spread through my entire body. First my eyes, then hair, then down my limbs, until even my fingers and toes felt they were aflame.’ But other people took the scarred letter another way, ‘An old man called me over; he spoke calmly but showed he was in control. ‘A scar is a sign of strength,” he said quietly. “The sign of a survivor.”’

I think that Madam Lockton treated Isabel so badly because her husband kept abandoning her to attend to the war’s needs. He refused to take her with him, they got into huge fights and the madam took it out on Isabel. ‘She flew into the bookcase.

“I command you to stay here! This is your duty and you will obey me!”  [...]

“Look what you’ve done you stupid girl.” Madam shouted at me. “You’ve spilt the candle wax and caused me to slip and cut my head.” We both knew this was a lie.’

The climax to the end was incredible; I could not put the book down. But the end of the novel was absolutely terrible. The last chapter involved Isabel and Curzon rowing to an island, after they had escaped from slavery and captivity, to where Ruth was captured. They awoke from sleep, washed up on a shore. This amazing novel ended with the line ‘I offered him my hand, “Can you walk?”’ this was an extremely disappointing ending as you don’t get to know what happens. But there is a sequel so it could just be acting as a cliff hanger; but I don’t feel I would like to read the next one as this ending has put me off.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book very much as it was directly related to real-life story that could have easily happened. This helped me get into the book much quicker as I could reflect on what the characters were feeling because I knew slaves in 1776 would have been through some on the same storylines. Many of my piers didn’t like this book which made me doubt it before I got into but I found I couldn’t put it down towards the end. This book deserves a 9/10 because of Anderson’s amazing creative writing, research and depth in emotion. I would have given it 10/10 if it hadn’t had been for the disappointing ending.