Reviews tagging 'Child death'

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

48 reviews

cyden's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Death, Gun violence, Child death, Colonisation, Violence, and Kidnapping

Minor: Racism, Sexism, and Slavery

tlaynejones's review against another edition

emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Colonisation, Child death, Racism, Sexism, and Gaslighting

mscalls's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Rape, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Murder, Misogyny, Death of parent, Mass/school shootings, Bullying, Child death, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Chronic illness, and Violence

tracey1981's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I loved this book about a village’s experiences with oil development on their land in Africa. It’s a fictional village called Kosawa - I imagined Nigeria but it could be almost anywhere in Africa which is the point, of course.

This book really lays bare the impacts of imperialism and colonialism over generations for the people and the land. It is devastating and also such an important illustration of what communities experience. The only thing more depressing than these things happening is no one acknowledging it, so in that sense, in a way it made me feel better to see someone writing about it. But just to be crystal clear, this is not a light read by any means. 

The story alternates between first person plural narration by “the children” and individual narrators. The first person plural was quite unique and I liked it. I thought the story flowed quite seamlessly from one section to the next. I also liked the different perspectives of the various narrators and how we developed a more complex understanding of other characters by seeing them through the eyes of different people. 

My only gripes were that I didn’t believe Thula, the main character, would have written such personal letters to her peers back home and there were some pacing issues in the last third of the book which I felt dragged a bit. 

4.5 stars rounded up. I look forward to reading more by Mbue.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Murder, and Child death

Moderate: Sexual assault and Child abuse

mels_reading_log's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is about the village of Kosawa, Africa and all those who live and died there. Kosawa, like many other poor areas of the world, was taken advantage of by a huge corporation who got them to sign contracts they didn’t understand then poisoned their air, soil, and water. This meant that many of their children got sick and died. Then they started fighting back.

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Content Warnings

Minor: War, Grief, Death, Torture, Mass/school shootings, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Sexual content, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Police brutality, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Violence, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Gun violence, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, Chronic illness, Blood, and Child death

bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I loved Mbue’s debut book, Behold the Dreamers, and after enjoying this one as well she’s officially become an auto buy author!

The story takes us through generations of Kosawa residents with switching POVs from Thula, different members of her family, and the children of the village. Their stories are emotional but contain glimmers of hope as they fight to get their land back from an oil corporation poisoning their families.

How Beautiful We Were has beautiful writing and well written, complex characters. I just love her storytelling style and ability to create such depth with all of her characters, giving each their own unique voice.

The chapters are a little too long for my taste making it feel slower/harder to read here and there, but as I got further into the novel, the chapters started to go  by faster. 

Overall a heartbreaking but enjoyable, groundbreaking novel! I can’t wait to see what Mbue writes next.

TW/CW: child death, kidnapping, imprisonment, death, miscarriage/stillbirth, grief, colonization, violence, blood, child sexual abuse, gun violence, mass shooting, slavery, religious bigotry (brief mention), rape

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Gun violence, Violence, Confinement, Sexual assault, Miscarriage, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Child death

Moderate: Slavery, Blood, and Rape

Minor: Religious bigotry and Fatphobia

readingelli's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, and Death of parent

Minor: Rape

Massacres, legal disputes

catcherinthepi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

~3.25 stars...this is a tough book to rate. It didn't feel like fiction in that it was so realistic and so bleak. It was a sobering, needed read, in that it paints a very telling picture of modern day colonization, especially on the part of Americans. 

That being said...the book's pace was awfully slow. The chapters were excessively long, and the beguiling tone of the narrators slowed it down further. The chapters are told from different perspectives, which often is interesting, but in the case of this book the interesting aspects of hearing about different people's thoughts was washed out by the redundancy in narration in the early and middle parts of the book.

There's a rape scene towards the end of the book that was totally unnecessary (unless it was included to show how a culture like the one here may address certain issues, I guess...) and totally ruined the rest of the book for me. I think the commentary of it was to showcase how women are treated, but I think there was ample context from the rest of the book to give readers the idea. 

All in all, probably a book more people should read, but it's slow as molasses and extremely depressing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Colonisation

Moderate: Violence, Grief, Murder, Child death, Racism, and Slavery

ka_cam's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Another reviewer said this book is a tragedy that wishes it didn’t have to be a tragedy and I couldn’t agree more. Tragic and infuriating, it did a good job of capturing how different people within the village Kosawa, corporate Pexton, the local capital and various governments navigate violence, greed, loss, and morality. The pacing was a bit off for me, and I was hoping for more fleshed out political development for Thula and later Juba, as it stood they felt flat at times. The expository letters from Thula’s time in the US didn’t really work for me as a device. All in all worth reading but not the top of my list. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Misogyny, Child death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Torture, Racism, and Terminal illness

Minor: Stalking

Additional content warnings for environmental racism and imperialism, death and illness due to environmental destruction, cultural loss and assimilation, government corruption and state sanctioned violence, etc

mia_difelice's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Grief, Child death, Death of parent, and Gun violence

Moderate: Rape, Violence, Police brutality, Gun violence, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Racism, Miscarriage, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Pedophilia, Homophobia, and Torture