Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

9 reviews

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

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

zombiezami's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Animal death, Child death, Murder, Grief, Terminal illness, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Blood, Chronic illness, Gore, Incest, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Death, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, War, Confinement, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Ableism

Minor: Homophobia, Deportation, and Fatphobia

environmental destruction, saneism

frogggirl2's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

WARNING:  Do not read this book if you are particularly sensitive to misogyny or rape.

This book is a beautiful cultural artifact.  While set in present day, because this culture is what we would call less advanced, there is near constant misogyny (things like saying a woman is useless if she can't have children, women can't work or remarry when widowed, etc.) throughout.  Some demeaning discussions of gender presentation (when they visit the city they mockingly say they can't figure out what gender prople are because women wear pants and men have long hair, etc.) are sprinkled throughout.  The culmination of all this sexism is the rape and forced impregnation of a woman who confesses rape is her worst fear, not by enemies but by her own community.  

I thought this book was beautifully written with resonant themes and beautiful characterizations of relationships and community, but, on balance I cant say it was worth it to battle through this unending, disgusting, unquestioned misogyny and rape.   Ultimately, the men in this community do to the women of this community what everyone else (government, corporations and colonizers) does to them (and so the women are doubly abused).  I don't think this is what the book meant for me to take from it, but this is what I got out of it nonetheless.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Incest, Gun violence, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Violence, Sexism, Police brutality, Murder, Child death, Death, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Misogyny, and Sexual assault

nfoutty's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Police brutality, Colonisation, Grief, Murder, Child death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, War, and Violence

Moderate: Mass/school shootings, Miscarriage, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Slavery, Infertility, Sexual content, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Incest, Torture, Trafficking, Death of parent, Classism, Kidnapping, and Homophobia

Minor: Alcohol and Abandonment

qqjj's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Colonisation, Medical content, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Rape, Sexual assault, Genocide, Medical trauma, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Police brutality, and Terminal illness

bandysbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-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

This was one of those books that is incredibly sad and also based in reality, but so well written that you can’t put it down. The fictional village of Kosawa was very compelling and at points I wanted to step through the pages of the story to help them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Violence, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Murder, Police brutality, Rape, Chronic illness, Grief, Gun violence, Infertility, and Genocide