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maaike115's review against another edition
5.0
Beautiful and thought-provoking story about a young girl, and later women, finding her indentity and dealing with the horrors of the past. The writing style of this author is very accesible and clear as well.
helene0707's review against another edition
4.0
Deeply disturbing and shattering. I still cannot fully wrap my head around what I’ve just read. This is an account marked by innocence which slowly transforms into anger in the course of the book - the story of survival and the emotion turmoil that follows. The only downside was the writing itself. It was too bland at times and I would have expected a variety of vocabulary rather than a similar sentence structure and use of the same words throughout. A must-read nonetheless to broaden your horizon.
laurenlgray's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
mscalls's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail
candelibri's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
medium-paced
5.0
On “genocide”: “I did not understand the point of the word genocide then. I resent and revile it now. The word is tidy and efficient. It holds no true emotion. It is impersonal when it needs to be intimate, cool and sterile when it needs to be gruesome. The word is hollow, true but disingenuous, a performance, the worst kind of lie. It cannot do justice--it is not meant to do justice--to the thing it describes.”
“It can't explain a child playing dead in a pool of his father's blood. The experience of a mother forever wailing on her knees. It cannot explain the never-ending pain, even if you live. You cannot bear witness with a single word".
“All those countries that ended World War II by saying ‘never again’ turned their backs.”
“It can't explain a child playing dead in a pool of his father's blood. The experience of a mother forever wailing on her knees. It cannot explain the never-ending pain, even if you live. You cannot bear witness with a single word".
“All those countries that ended World War II by saying ‘never again’ turned their backs.”
“Our minds are malleable. Our minds can be possessed - possessed so gradually that we don’t even realize we’ve lost control.”
hofmerin's review against another edition
5.0
"The word genocide cannot articulate the -person experience—the real experience of each of the millions it purports to describe. The experience of the child playing dead in a pool of his father’s blood. The experience of a mother forever wailing on her knees. The word genocide cannot explain the never-ending pain, even if you live."
"There’s no label to peel and stick that absolves you, shows you’ve done your duty, you’ve completed the moral project of remembering. This—Rwanda, my life—is a different, specific, personal tragedy, just as each of those horrors was a different, specific, personal tragedy, and inside all those tidily labeled boxes are 6 million, or 1.7 million, or 100,000, or 100 billion lives destroyed. You cannot line up the atrocities like a matching set. You cannot bear witness with a single word"
last one
"I know it is a privilege to have the safety, time, comfort, and education to try to shape my experience into something coherent, to think critically and creatively about my life. There’s a difference between story and experience. Experience is the whole mess, all that actually happened; a story is the pieces you string together, what you make of it, a guide to your own existence. Experience is the scars on my legs. My story is that they’re proof that I’m alive. Your story, the meaning you choose to take when you listen to me, might be different. Your story might be that my scars are my fault and I should feel shame.”
"There’s no label to peel and stick that absolves you, shows you’ve done your duty, you’ve completed the moral project of remembering. This—Rwanda, my life—is a different, specific, personal tragedy, just as each of those horrors was a different, specific, personal tragedy, and inside all those tidily labeled boxes are 6 million, or 1.7 million, or 100,000, or 100 billion lives destroyed. You cannot line up the atrocities like a matching set. You cannot bear witness with a single word"
last one
"I know it is a privilege to have the safety, time, comfort, and education to try to shape my experience into something coherent, to think critically and creatively about my life. There’s a difference between story and experience. Experience is the whole mess, all that actually happened; a story is the pieces you string together, what you make of it, a guide to your own existence. Experience is the scars on my legs. My story is that they’re proof that I’m alive. Your story, the meaning you choose to take when you listen to me, might be different. Your story might be that my scars are my fault and I should feel shame.”
allieuofm's review against another edition
4.0
Well written and well-read audiobook by Robin Miles. I also enjoyed getting to hear from Clemantine at the end of the book. An important story and made me more interested in learning more about the Rwandan genocide.