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thecriticalreader's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Review:
In Call and Response, author Gothataone Moeng delivers a collection of short stories about rural and city life in modern-day Botswana. Each of her characters faces loneliness, alienation, and melancholy as they yearn for personal fulfillment amidst a complex network of familial, cultural, financial, and social obligations. Her stories are fastidious, reflective, and concerned with the minutiae of everyday life—as such, this book is slow-paced to the occasional point of dullness. However, Moeng rewards readers for their patience with quiet revelations about life in a country that is simultaneously leaping toward modernity and clinging to cultural legacies borne from native heritage, colonialism, and the specters of not-so-distant national crises.
The Run-Down:
You will probably like Call and Response if . . .
· You like slow-paced, reflective slice-of-life stories
· You want to immerse yourself in the lives of modern-day Batswana
· You like stories that reflect on themes of family, patriarchy, modern social and technological change, and national identity
You might not like Call and Response if . . .
· You want to read a book that pays more attention to the joys of life in Botswana than its sorrows
· You want to a collection of read fast-paced, gripping stories
Graphic: Abandonment, Colonisation, Death of parent, Classism, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Sexism, Misogyny, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Abortion, Blood, Cursing, Sexual harassment, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, and Dementia
Minor: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Vomit, Miscarriage, Animal death, Child death, Car accident, Excrement, and Fatphobia
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