Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya

1 review

massivepizzacrust's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

I knew going into this book that it was going to be informative and that the subject was going to be harrowing. But I didn't know how engaging the writing was going to be, and I didn't know how much of the book was going to be set after Clemantine received asylum in the US. It adds a certain comfort and safety for the reader to immediately know the family is going to survive. This shifts the focus from placing yourself in the middle of terrible conflict to wider reflections on colonialism, how we treat refugees, and human nature. I don't think this was meant to be an uplifting or optimistic book but it manages to be critical and emotional without being depressing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, and War

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Self harm, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, and Animal death

This book discusses the genocide in Rwanda and it doesn't hide much but it also doesn't dwell on the gruesomeness of the violence. Things that happen to the author or her sister are described in past tense. The author discusses sexual violence throughout the book but never a specific incident.