Reviews tagging 'War'

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya

16 reviews

sonj's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

Following the Rwandan Genocide, a young girl and her siblings are displaced and must fight for their right to live in a world that will never understand them. Without community, family, or earthly belongings, the siblings make allies throughout African refugee camps and become tokenized in American media. The emotional struggle of the (understandably) unreliable narrator is both funny and ruthless and makes this book a heartbreaking triumph.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Genocide, Violence, and Xenophobia

jess_vitale's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Domestic abuse, and Genocide

funky_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Violence, and War

Moderate: Sexual violence, Colonisation, Sexism, and Classism

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.

tarisc's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Violence, and War

ahaimhere's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide

Moderate: Domestic abuse, War, and Death

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault