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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Orphaned at an early age and at risk for darker things from invaders, Akuany is put in the care of a traveling peddler who has connections to her father. It is but the first of many changes in her life and in the world around her. She grows up passed through different households playing different roles as flexible as the politics and spiritual elements that are molding Sudan at the time. These tensions and philosophies are elaborated by several people who are in their own ways intertwined with her life to give the reader a holistic historical view.
This is a book that I am thinking about days later. Somehow it is both absolutely crushing as tragedies are not few. Yet there is also beauty in that there are characters who don't just make the best of their situation but find their joys where they can. It also provides relationships between women that usually in narratives filled with jealousy or rivalry. While there is some, there's also a lot of cooperation and even care as each character has a very different life philosophy than a modern western mindset.
Though not a practitioner I really loved the positive representation for the Muslim faith and put front that there are those who have weaponized it throughout ages that have led much of the world to be adversarial at the word itself and clumping very different peoples in with radicalism. Too often parts of the world and their rich history are ignored or given a colonialist history that deprive of of the nuances that exist just as within other regions.
This is a book that I am thinking about days later. Somehow it is both absolutely crushing as tragedies are not few. Yet there is also beauty in that there are characters who don't just make the best of their situation but find their joys where they can. It also provides relationships between women that usually in narratives filled with jealousy or rivalry. While there is some, there's also a lot of cooperation and even care as each character has a very different life philosophy than a modern western mindset.
Though not a practitioner I really loved the positive representation for the Muslim faith and put front that there are those who have weaponized it throughout ages that have led much of the world to be adversarial at the word itself and clumping very different peoples in with radicalism. Too often parts of the world and their rich history are ignored or given a colonialist history that deprive of of the nuances that exist just as within other regions.
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
A really strong opening, and I was drawn into the story of Akuany and her brother (who soon sadly fell into the background) but around the midpoint too many viewpoints disrupted the narrative, especially as some added little to the novel meaning that in the second half it lost its drive.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
Hsisjsjajaba the love between Akuany and everyone in Yaseem’s family at the end is everything to me
Decided I wanted to read this so as to be better able to distinguish between place names and times
Will definitely need to reread… a lot was going on
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated