Reviews with content warning for Murder - How Beautiful We Were

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.

Content Warnings

mels_reading_log's review against another edition

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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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catcherinthepi's review against another edition

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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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matthewrob's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.25

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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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lsbonnie's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Okay. There is a lot that I want to say about it.

I don’t think I had ever read a fiction focused on ecology, which is why I was drawn to this story to begin with. What a treat! An American company settling near a fictional village to dig and take all of its oil to bring back to the USA, not caring one bit about the consequences caused by its activities. The water is polluted, the soil is polluted, the air is polluted, children are dying… What can they do to protect their village? Should it be peaceful, or violent? What will happen when they rebel?

But it is more than just ecology. It’s also about colonization.

Colonization has impacted the lives of Kosawa and neighbour villages for decades and still to this day. Slave trade, colonialism, putting a dictator in place who works with the American/European, neocolonialism, … It shows in plenty of small and big ways. It is everywhere. The story may be fictional, but the History is not; it is a reminder (for white people, really) of the violence committed against non-white people when invading countries.

I also particularly liked the part with Konga not wanting the help of the Restoration Movement, not wanting their freedom to depend on them, because then are they truly free? “when you're old, you'll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who will want to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.”

Culturally speaking, it is a truly interesting book. The Spirit, the twins Jakani and Sakani, Juba coming back from the dead, … – all the supernatural and other inexplicable events were gripping but also just made normal. American and European cultures tend to look at these beliefs in a condescending way but here they are shown as just normal, existing, part of everyday life, which they are. Even putting the supernatural aside, the book shows their lives as they are, without the patronizing view American/European can have (“they live in huts omg poor African people!”), which is refreshing.

On another note, as a (white and European) feminist, it was sometimes hard for me to read as there is quite a lot of misogyny in this book. But I also found it interesting because it reflects how some cultures are. You cannot expect every country, every culture to meet you where you are, you have to meet them where they are and try to see their point of view, their history, their ways of living. Just because they do things differently it doesn’t mean that they are wrong. Moreover, the Kosawa community is not completely closed off, I’d even say that it is open to change.

For example, even though Thula won’t get married and have children, they still listen. Yes, the impregnation ceremony was awful to read, but in a way they are still giving her a choice (the child won’t come unless she decides to have a child), they are not sending someone to rape her or refusing to listen to her because she is a childless unmarried woman. And they were doing so to help her, so that she would be listened to in other communities. There are mentions of other sexualities and of gender, and while the Kosawa community may not understand they do not react violently or reject it categorically.

Honestly, I would love for Mbue to tell us why she included all those elements. I read some interviews but saw nothing about that.

However I’m confused as to why the (tw: pedophilia)

grandfather assaulted by his uncle when he was a child

was in the story. Maybe Mbue wanted to say that (tw)

boys and men get raped too?

Maybe it is something that part of her community prefers ignoring therefore she wants to shed light on it? It would be interesting to have her reasoning on this too.

To finish, I liked the writing style. I usually am not a fan of multiple narrators and/or narratives over many years as I tend to get lost, but I found it easy to follow here. I particularly liked when the narrator was “the children”, a whole group of people speaking at one. I will say though that at times it felt like Mbue went into too many details, slowing down the narrative. But I believe that it is worth pushing through, to read the whole story.

Almost a 5*, but I took off 0.5 because of the pace too slow at times and for some details that I consider unnecessary. But apart from that, I truly recommend reading this book, especially if you are white.

Content Warnings

ukponge's review

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective 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? No

4.5

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