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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
Good but challenging read; unreliable but fascinating narrator, and difficult tale - great book group discussion.
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Not a thriller by any means which felt misleading as I read it.
Liked it better as the espionage elements picked up, making the first third of the book detailing her family history harder to get through. Felt like this would feel like a more revolutionary/captivating book to someone who is newly reconsidering the legacy of America, but to me it was mostly just interesting to learn about Burkina Faso and Thomas Sankar, places and a figure I know little about. I almost wished for richer political conversations between characters. Some fun twists towards the end.
Liked it better as the espionage elements picked up, making the first third of the book detailing her family history harder to get through. Felt like this would feel like a more revolutionary/captivating book to someone who is newly reconsidering the legacy of America, but to me it was mostly just interesting to learn about Burkina Faso and Thomas Sankar, places and a figure I know little about. I almost wished for richer political conversations between characters. Some fun twists towards the end.
I read this entire book wondering what was the plot? Or was it just meant to be a journal of Marie's life to share with her sons? Anyway, it was interesting on one level, but not at all gripping on another.
This was an intriguing story, and illustrates how destructive the US has been and continues to be for its own self interests. And those who profit from setting up the infrastructure and selling the weapons are doing so for the same reason. White men ruin everything.
Not what I expected. Felt somewhat like it does to read Colson Whitehead, thinking I missed something that wasn’t even there.
REALLY good. This book touched on so many interesting topics and themes . . . betrayal, family, legacy, justice, motherhood, race, and more! The pacing is great, too!
3.5 “It's not romantic to be so loyal that you compromise your sense of self”
Wonderful book
Wonderful book
I enjoyed this novel, about Marie, a black woman who becomes a spy for the US govt and ultimately travels to Burkina Faso to intervene in the govt there. An over-enthusiastic blurb said it mixed John LeCarre with Ralph Ellison, and it's true that the epigraph is from Invisible Man, the grandfather's statement about living in the lion's mouth. This novel engages that question, about people of color working for the US govt, and how that gives them access to non-white spaces, how this can create internal conflict. But it never reaches Ellison's hallucinatory states or his lyric flights.
The novel skips around through a couple different time frames, from Marie's childhood to the present and back a little. One thing that kind of confused me was that the story's present is 1992, and that kind of threw me; it made the book feel kind of out of time in a way that didn't flatter it. I also didn't think that it fully resolved some of its main threads-- the death of Helene feels unresolved, but also tensions like Mr Ali are untouched. I get it that the ending is meant to push the character in a particular direction, but maybe that direction wasn't the one that left me feeling like we'd seen enough of Marie to understand where she was going. It felt unmotivated and unlikely to address her core issues....
The novel and its protagonist feels like this is very current in the way it explores black identity, interrogating African roots (Marie notes she is black in the US, but definitely American in Africa) but also a Caribbean mother. This Afro-Caribbean thing is a new trend, right?
The novel skips around through a couple different time frames, from Marie's childhood to the present and back a little. One thing that kind of confused me was that the story's present is 1992, and that kind of threw me; it made the book feel kind of out of time in a way that didn't flatter it. I also didn't think that it fully resolved some of its main threads-- the death of Helene feels unresolved, but also tensions like Mr Ali are untouched. I get it that the ending is meant to push the character in a particular direction, but maybe that direction wasn't the one that left me feeling like we'd seen enough of Marie to understand where she was going. It felt unmotivated and unlikely to address her core issues....
The novel and its protagonist feels like this is very current in the way it explores black identity, interrogating African roots (Marie notes she is black in the US, but definitely American in Africa) but also a Caribbean mother. This Afro-Caribbean thing is a new trend, right?
American Spy by Laura Wilkinson is not at all what I expected. If you are looking for a thriller this isn't it. Some good historical fiction about A Black female spy in the late 80s and how the CIA and FBI are Hella fucked up for trying to corrupt governments that ain't none of their businesses... Well, this is the book. I always appreciate learning things from books and I learned about Thomas Sankara an African anticapitalism revolutionary. This book was perfect timing actually since I'm trying to learn more about socialism and communism. Plus I'm writing an espionage novel. This book gave me lots to think about especially how we Black Americans are all living some kinda secret spy life in a country which doesn't allow us to be ourselves.
So while I wish it had a little more consistent action, it made me think a lot and the third half pretty awesome. So 4 out 5 stars.
So while I wish it had a little more consistent action, it made me think a lot and the third half pretty awesome. So 4 out 5 stars.