Reviews with content warning for Confinement - How Beautiful We Were

Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

8 reviews

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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zombiezami's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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noahsingh's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? N/A

4.0

This was really well-written, I enjoyed the character perspective jumps (which I normally don't to be honest), I love how they were used to expand upon a singular familys perspective on both each other and the events in Kosawa and it's a really heartbreaking but realistic depiction of neo-colonialism/capitalism/etc
The reason this was only four rather than five stars for me is this (spoilers ahead and tw for rape/sexual assault):
1. What was the need to write the twins doing that to Thula? Seriously. It doesn't help the cause if any real way, she doesn't even end up realizing she's pregnant or having the child, she isn't even aware anything happened to her. Instead we just get the off-screen sexual assault of the main character with the complicity of some of the people she trusts most. Is the point just that women suffer from the short-sightedness of misogynistic men? If so, that was already made clear throughout the rest of the book. It was just upsetting for no reason in my opinion.
2. By the end of the book you're stuck with only Juba's perspective and the children who didn't rebel. I understand that the ending was realistic in terms, things like this often don't get fixed. What I didn't understand was the need to finish the book with the perspectives of those who conform to, and even benefit from, the oppression of people who they were once like. There was just, a bit too much sympathy for the oppressors in this book, I mean, what was the need for the Leader to have a tragic backstory as well? I'm sure lots of people who participate/benefit from oppression had some tragedy in their past, that doesn't make being complicit in the deaths of dozens of children okay? People do desperate things in desperate situations, sure, but why not focus more on solidarity? On potentially building resistance with the labourers at the oil pipes, rather than against them? I suppose my issue with this book is that despite the fact that I loved 90 percent of it, those last 40 or so pages of the book really lets it down. There's also quite a bit of skipping key/plot-important moments in the novel while instead lingering in the moments of depression/fear/terror. Which wouldn't be a problem if there was any payoff at the end, even if that had just been seeing the Five/Thula fight back against the soldiers, rather than hearing about it all third hand. Yes its brilliantly written, but the ultimate perspective jumps into Juba and the other Children, means that the final message of the book seems to be one of assimilation into systems of western/capitalism/neocolonial oppression. It lets down the rest of the book.

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dominicangirl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

4.75

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seawarrior's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

How Beautiful We Were is a tragedy, but one that demands the reader not to feel sympathy, but to reflect on our role in the poisoning and exploitation of villages like Kosawa. Mbue pits hope and reality against each other repeatedly throughout the novel, gifting Kosawa with tiny victories the characters and reader both must learn are more akin to sedatives and insults than progress. I felt the writing throughout most of the book was illustrative and sharply observant, though there were times where it lacked detail and lagged as the novel progressed. Mbue defied my expectations with the book's ending, initially making me feel disappointed and almost angry. Yet after reflecting further, her unflinching depiction of the humanity, homelands and culture that colonialism and capitalism has stripped from our world of is more striking through use of an unsettling finale in the modern day. I would recommend this story to others, but please be warned that it pulls no punches with its descriptions of environmental degradation and the horrors that unfold in its wake.

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plumquin's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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kylieqrada's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-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

4.0

When thinking about my rating for this book, I discovered that it seems to be very polarizing. The narrative style and timeline was very intriguing to some while being incredibly off-putting to others. I align myself firmly with the former camp, and wholeheartedly enjoyed this book in almost all ways. The treatment of the children of the village as a character in and of themselves was novel and arresting, and the nonlinear timeline and multiple narrators being drawn from one family only enhanced my enjoyment. I would have given it a 4.5 ⭐s, actually, except for a confusing, and admittedly very subtle, discussion of homosexuality that, in my opinion, was not ever reconciled or handled in any satisfying way. I was in fact reading others' reviews to see if anyone else had been put off by this thread in the story, but didn't see anyone else discussing it. I will be interested to see Own Voices reactions to this book in that regard. I finally settled on 4 ⭐s for my rating, docking 1/2 a star for this element.

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now_booking's review

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-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

4.5

Wow. When they say something is an arduous read... this definitely felt like one. Perhaps it is because as a Nigerian person from the oil-producing Niger Delta region, this felt like a salt on a raw wound, like a bandaid slowly, painfully being peeled off a hairy leg, like digging into a raw wound. And yet it is so gorgeously written, that even though I was triggered and absolutely heartbroken and destroyed reading this, I was highlighting large swathes of the gorgeous writing.

The premise is that Kosawa is a (fictional) post-colonial village somewhere in a forgotten, rural part of a fictional unnamed country in Africa. After decades of oil exploration, their land and water have been destroyed by villainous American oil company, Pexton, and the pollution is killing their children and relatives. One family, the Nangi, family seems destined to take on the burden of leading the revolution to bring justice to the community and end decades of exploitation, specifically granddaughter Thula Nangi, but it comes at a steep cost.

This was a book that covered a lot of ground thematically and historically in a really painstaking way, trying to cover varied perspectives. For that reason, it felt a lot slower and a lot longer than it was. This was a somewhat slow and difficult read and not just because it’s meandering through different storytellers with different perspectives of the same story, not because of the sometimes back and forth shifting timelines, or the tedious detail that is gone into to ensure that no piece of the story is missed makes it a slow read, this was difficult because it is real and honest and true and anyone from anywhere who has ever been exploited and treated like justice doesn’t matter will relate.

When I started this book, I imagined that it was based on my country but reading further and deeper, I realized that the book is kind of based off a lot of African countries. The leader, His Excellency, is a conflation of every awful African dictator that has ever existed - you can pick your traits and utterances and identify which real life leaders contributed what to this Frankenstein-like monster. The oil company, Pexton, could really be any foreign mining or extraction company raping African resources and then adding insult to injury, colluding with corrupt governments to exploit the people. The reference to forced labour on rubber plantations and atrocities against those ancestors forced into that labour is clearly from Congo. I feel like this story belongs to many people, however it was inspired.

This book often read like anti-capitalist environmental fiction with an air of dystopia in it, but it’s even more devastating for the fact that I know it’s plausibility and I know it’s true because my people from my place of origin have lived through these exact things, are living through these exact things. So how wouldn’t I feel “a way” re-opening wounds about governments prioritizing corporations over people and over justice. How won’t I sympathize with Kosawa and with Thula and the children. How wouldn’t anyone of conscience empathize and condemn these acts.

This book feels like an indictment of corporate greed and irresponsibility, of leaders who sell their people out, of hierarchies that ignore the deaths and suffering of innocent children, of broken justice systems and of those of us who sit and wait to dialogue everything to death whilst the status quo persists, of the ones who choose violence and the consequences they bring to the innocent and to themselves. It is not a very hopeful book, but the reality of the situation for millions of people around the world who are being exploited by corporations is not a hopeful one either.

This is my second book by this author and what I love about this author’s writing is that she doesn’t tell you what to think, she doesn’t editorialize and tell you her opinions. She reveals the characters and how they think and feel and their opinions- wrong or right in a way that absolutely makes you understand their motivations whether you agree or not. She did this in Behold The Dreamers, and she does it here as well. I have worked on projects around post-conflict reconstruction around the extractive industry-motivated militancy and justice and access to data from the oil exploration sector, and I’ve never read or heard anyone reveal the history of things and provide a justification for the violence and bitterness that ensued like I’ve witnessed from this author in this book. I wish everyone from every other region who says “why are they so mad,” “why resort to violence?,” “why don’t they ask their own regional governments questions,” I wish everyone who looks down and judges my people could read this to understand the whys and the origin story.

But this book isn’t all modern capitalist atrocities and failed governments, somewhere in there are themes of colonialism and loss of heritage, of love and family and responsibility, of grief and heartbreak and loss, of femininity and feminism and sexuality, gender roles and culture and power. And of course, justice. But yes, this is definitely a story about how the worship of profit over people and the exploitation and corruption that result are historical- it’s in the heritage of the slave trade and slavery from Africa to the West, it’s in the way indigenous people in the the Americas (and elsewhere) have been unjustly treated and exploited over their own ancestral land and resources, it in the way that there is some in-born spirit of selfishness in those that seek to exploit others and greed in those willing to sell their compatriots out for money and power. The author then brings it down to the family level and talks about the corruptions and exploitations families overlook even when victims speak up, the misogyny and assault and betrayal amongst friends, the gaslighting, the loss of self and of cultural heritage, the colonization of future generations who were born free citizens. It is pretty depressing and triggering in every single way possible.

This book is divided into chapters by narrator. Each narrator sort of gets one shot to tell the story from their perspective- interspersed by chapters from “The Children” who are a sort of chorus of Thula’s (Thula Nangi is the sort of protagonist) age-mates at different stages in their lives from young childhood to grandparenthood. My favourite chapter was grandmother, Yaya’s chapter. I think that’s the level of resignation I’ve reached with this issue personally. When I read the first chapter of this, I thought I was going to give it 5 stars. But I think this was such a huge undertaking, there were so many themes and so many issues that the author captured that sometimes it felt too much a little and main thread of the story was a little lost. And I think this makes sense with so many sources telling the same story from different points of view and different times in life, and that is executed brilliantly and probably results in the art the author wanted to create even though it lost some of threads I wanted followed and I wanted to read. I think objectively, this is a 5-star book, but I feel a 4-star way about it: so 4.5 stars???? If you pick this up, bring your fury along, you’ll need it for this book. The rage alone!!!

Many thanks to Random House for the complementary review copy through NetGalley.

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