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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
More reviews up on my blog Inside My Library Mind
I started writing this and tried to come up with a positive thing I had to say about this novel, but I struggled with coming up with a single one. This book just did not work for me on so many levels.
Supposedly, a lot of research went into this book, and I cannot say that I am informed enough to be the judge if it is, in fact, accurate, but I can say that it does not translate into the text. This to me felt very obviously written by someone who had no grasp on the larger scope of this story – the culture, the political situation, or the devastating consequences that the extremist forces had on the people of Nigeria. The good thing is that this didn’t feel gratuitous to me, but her voice just did not bring anything to the table, and this book just should not have existed. I think it’s interesting that in the wake of the backlash that American Dirt received this book did not get a similar treatment, or at least not in that amount. This has been getting a lot of praise and literary recognition and I just do not see why. I think it tackles a really harrowing event in a really uninspiring way, that lacks the needed nuance and context, so I just wish that we would stop hyping up stories that definitely should be told, but by someone else.
But even if we put that aside (which we won’t, it’s still, in my opinion, this book’s biggest fault), this just wasn’t good.
The author failed to write a compelling, or believable character, down to the way she spoke and carried herself (at times this felt very Western to me in its narration, which just added to me feeling uneasy about Edna O’Brien telling this particular story). Never did Maryam feel like a real person, with thoughts and feelings, which is awful, given what this story is about. She also never felt like a young girl, and I kept thinking This is so very clearly written by an 90-year old white Irish woman. This is plot-driven, and seems to be like a checklist of bad things happening, without any insight into the characters. Moreover, the pace is not well handled, and the first half goes fast, with a lot of awful things happening in a short amount of time, and then half-way through we hit a stall and for the rest of the book, I struggled to even finish it.
The prose was flat and uninspiring, and it left me completely emotionally detached, which is a feat given the horrid events that happen. We kept switching between past and present tense. I think the point of it was to leave a feeling of a memory, as if this was being retold and that it was happening in the past, but that for these girls it will also continue to happen always, but I don’t think it actually worked, it was just strange.
Also, whenever a new character was introduced, their life story was relayed to the reader in italics, which just feels like such an amateur way to deal with character introductions.
The trauma was never explored, there was just no nuance to any of this and I really fail to see why this book was written, where the author was going with it and what even was the point. I feel like this book’s blurbed promises so much, and never actually delivers on any of it. I firmly believe that this just should have been left for someone else to tell it.
Sarah found that people were recommending this book – The Chibok Girls by Helon Habila – which is a non-fiction book written by a Nigerian author, as a book that should be read on the topic of the Boko Haram kidnappings.
To Sum Up
Highly recommend that you skip this one.
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I started writing this and tried to come up with a positive thing I had to say about this novel, but I struggled with coming up with a single one. This book just did not work for me on so many levels.
Supposedly, a lot of research went into this book, and I cannot say that I am informed enough to be the judge if it is, in fact, accurate, but I can say that it does not translate into the text. This to me felt very obviously written by someone who had no grasp on the larger scope of this story – the culture, the political situation, or the devastating consequences that the extremist forces had on the people of Nigeria. The good thing is that this didn’t feel gratuitous to me, but her voice just did not bring anything to the table, and this book just should not have existed. I think it’s interesting that in the wake of the backlash that American Dirt received this book did not get a similar treatment, or at least not in that amount. This has been getting a lot of praise and literary recognition and I just do not see why. I think it tackles a really harrowing event in a really uninspiring way, that lacks the needed nuance and context, so I just wish that we would stop hyping up stories that definitely should be told, but by someone else.
But even if we put that aside (which we won’t, it’s still, in my opinion, this book’s biggest fault), this just wasn’t good.
The author failed to write a compelling, or believable character, down to the way she spoke and carried herself (at times this felt very Western to me in its narration, which just added to me feeling uneasy about Edna O’Brien telling this particular story). Never did Maryam feel like a real person, with thoughts and feelings, which is awful, given what this story is about. She also never felt like a young girl, and I kept thinking This is so very clearly written by an 90-year old white Irish woman. This is plot-driven, and seems to be like a checklist of bad things happening, without any insight into the characters. Moreover, the pace is not well handled, and the first half goes fast, with a lot of awful things happening in a short amount of time, and then half-way through we hit a stall and for the rest of the book, I struggled to even finish it.
The prose was flat and uninspiring, and it left me completely emotionally detached, which is a feat given the horrid events that happen. We kept switching between past and present tense. I think the point of it was to leave a feeling of a memory, as if this was being retold and that it was happening in the past, but that for these girls it will also continue to happen always, but I don’t think it actually worked, it was just strange.
Also, whenever a new character was introduced, their life story was relayed to the reader in italics, which just feels like such an amateur way to deal with character introductions.
The trauma was never explored, there was just no nuance to any of this and I really fail to see why this book was written, where the author was going with it and what even was the point. I feel like this book’s blurbed promises so much, and never actually delivers on any of it. I firmly believe that this just should have been left for someone else to tell it.
Sarah found that people were recommending this book – The Chibok Girls by Helon Habila – which is a non-fiction book written by a Nigerian author, as a book that should be read on the topic of the Boko Haram kidnappings.
To Sum Up
Highly recommend that you skip this one.
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While I'm not exactly opposed to writers writing about experiences outside their own (wouldn't that be boring?), there's definitely some issues with regards to sensationalizing violence in this book (some of the events are widely exaggerated and people who covered these events have stated that there's no evidence for a lot of what happens in this book). However, I didn't get the feeling that she did it with bad intentions; after listening to some of her interviews I do think she had good intent, but whiteness clearly filtered her experience).
I personally do not like reading books written by white people about any BIPOC's life and experiences, so now that I know the author is a white woman, I'm gonna have to put it down. This is not to say the writing isn't good, I just prefer to read own voices novels. Especially since I don't know how much personal bias of the author's is inputted into the story.
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Edna O’Brien is an author I hear a lot of people talk about – her skill as a writer, plots everything so I was mighty excited when I heard that her latest book, girl was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
I think I started with the wrong book.
Girl is neatly divided into three sections. The book begins with Maryam, who is kidnapped by an extreme Nigerian Islamic group and is faced with unspeakable horrors. Trust me, the book does not leave one detail out. In the meantime she marries against her will and has a child.
The second part focuses on Maryam’s escape from the group with her child and friend. In order to go to a safer place. Whereas the first part was about the main protagonist surviving, the second part also has Maryam trying to survive but this time the environment is the main enemy.
The third part has her reach salvation and reunite with her family but there is a cost. Once again Maryam has to survive in a world stuffed with superstitions.
Girl is well written and the horrific bits are realistic but the story just didn’t work for me. It felt flat and uninspired. I had the impression that O’Brien had to write something at gunpoint. It also raises an interesting question : if so many people made a fuss over American Dirt, how come no one is saying anything about an Irishperson writing about Nigeria? If one can answer do tell me.
I think I started with the wrong book.
Girl is neatly divided into three sections. The book begins with Maryam, who is kidnapped by an extreme Nigerian Islamic group and is faced with unspeakable horrors. Trust me, the book does not leave one detail out. In the meantime she marries against her will and has a child.
The second part focuses on Maryam’s escape from the group with her child and friend. In order to go to a safer place. Whereas the first part was about the main protagonist surviving, the second part also has Maryam trying to survive but this time the environment is the main enemy.
The third part has her reach salvation and reunite with her family but there is a cost. Once again Maryam has to survive in a world stuffed with superstitions.
Girl is well written and the horrific bits are realistic but the story just didn’t work for me. It felt flat and uninspired. I had the impression that O’Brien had to write something at gunpoint. It also raises an interesting question : if so many people made a fuss over American Dirt, how come no one is saying anything about an Irishperson writing about Nigeria? If one can answer do tell me.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
Based on the true story of the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria, Girl by Edna O’Brien has some shocking scenes. I felt that O’Brien didn’t dwell so much on the horrors that the girls endured though, as so many books about this event do. Instead, she explored the difficult healing and recovery of the narrator, Maryam. Thwarted and abetted by others, Maryam has a long journey to safety that is both heartbreaking and at the same time hopeful. I have long admired O’Brien’s short stories. Girl has the same gorgeous writing—and shows the author’s ability to mine a character’s emotion—that I’ve seen in the shorter works.
This book is narrated by a school girl kidnapped by boko haram and the horrible things she goes through. I read it in Catalan, so that might have detached me a bit from the story, but I found it very European narrating style that didn’t fit the story and topic. A very meh book
dark
emotional
tense
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced