Reviews

Days Come and Go by Hemley Boum

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whatadutchgirlreads's review against another edition

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reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

cruzsuzanne's review

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4.0

"Forgiveness will never be necessary between us. Not in this life or in any other."

blackfeatherhideout's review

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adventurous emotional informative inspiring sad 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? N/A

4.0

“A woman's body is much more demanding than her heart. Have I said this before? It has only one life and never forgets that. It keeps an account of blows like it does the memory of kisses, the wounds we inflict on ourselves and those that life deals us. It does not heal, is not restored, but forges ahead with great haste — nothing matters but the past and present; it is unconcerned with the future. Hence, it cannot accommodate any form of hypocrisy: the body scoffs at our gimmicks, unceremoniously dismisses our dalliances, the petty deals we strike with ourselves. It does not entertain excuses and irrevocably punishes lies that the heart condones.” — Hemley Boum, “Days Come and Go”

Three women are at the centre of this story. They are Anna, who is living out her final days in Paris; Abi, her daughter; and Tina, a teenager who comes under the sway of a militant terrorist faction. These three women experience their country, Cameroon, in very different ways. Through their eyes, we are able to understand colonialism’s impact on African society. The breadth of the novel is epic, tackling love and loss, politics and patriarchy, transition and modernity, religion and history. There is so much to unpack!

Anna is raised in a time when modernity and Christianity are being used to silence black people, and she, like all children of that time, even comes to love her coloniser, because they come with shiny things and trinkets and pretend to offer a better way of life, but, are in fact, there to colonise and wipe out a way of life that has been followed for centuries. She will realise only later, when she tries to find her way back to herself, that she was a victim of white supremacy.

In one incident, Anna’s teacher decides to pull out her tooth herself — without her guardian’s permission — without numbing the area first and without telling Anna what she was about to do. She then offers her tablets for the pain, but those painkillers don’t work. Anna eventually goes home, where her enraged guardian tends to her and gives her a mixture of herbs she created herself. It’s this mixture — a traditional remedy that the likes of the nuns and priests see as primitive — that manages to cure Anna’s ailment. It’s a scene that synthesises the story of colonialism well: it is a tale of white people thinking they know better, violating our bodily and other autonomy, and then offering ineffective solutions for the problems they caused — all because they think they know better.

Anna muses, “So I lived in their midst, always on the fringes, insignificant, and they spoke freely in my presence.

I saw how little regard they had for us, how much they held us in low esteem. They did not know us, and were not really interested in knowing us either. By virtue of their faith, their mission, and their biases, they did not have to: they knew better than us, both what we needed and how we should live.”

She is aware that without them she would not have had access to “the unparalleled work they did in education and healthcare”. But these things came at the cost of her dignity and that of her community. It also came at the cost of their way of life:

“Yet, their mission required locals to forfeit ancestral practices, including our indigenous languages, which we were forbidden from using in their presence. The essence of our being in the world, its core tenet, ingrained in us across generations, was being violently questioned. Their work demanded allegiance, utter surrender, from us.

I did not realise this then, but these demands threw us off balance, divided us, made us doubt ourselves and weakened us. They birthed a cruel conflict in us, putting our loyalty to the test. We were inhabited by this childish and conflicting desire to please and resist them all at the same time.”

Her daughter Abi grows to be as strong-willed as her mother, and the book does a good job of following her life and how her family’s history seeps into it. In many ways, the story of Anna is the story of Cameroon. The story of Abi is the story of modernity and tradition. And the story of Tina is the story of religion, patriarchy, and self-determination.

The parts of the book that’ll make you cry the most are the ones where we follow Tina’s story. When Tina is kidnapped, things get pretty nasty. I appreciate the care with which Boum tells the story. It isn’t simply a story of how some people are bad and others are not; rather she goes into the “why” of how extremists are made, and also gives voice to the destruction they leave in their wake.

This was a translation from the French, and a good one I think. I say that not because I know French but because the story itself is still well-rounded and engaging even though it is a translation. If there was anything lost in translation, it didn’t hinder the telling of the story. There were quite a bit of typos and grammar errors in the text, though. Despite that, I think this is an important story and a must-read!

benereads's review

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emotional lighthearted sad fast-paced

4.25

thatothernigeriangirl's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective 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? Yes

4.25

Days Come & Go is the story of three generations of Cameroonian women, and of the country itself. It starts off as a mother daughter story with Abi visiting her dying mother Anna. Through their eyes and recollections we see colonialism at work, the advantages of an education provided by Catholic nuns - but also some of the disadvantages, the idealism of the independence movement, the corruption that so many newly independent nations suffered, the factors leading Cameroonians to move to France and some of the realities of life there, and of moving between countries and cultures. This was all solid and well-done. But then the book really took a turn, a turn that felt a little jarring, possibly deliberately so. The focus shifted to Tina, a young woman who was part of the friend group of Abi’s son Max who had been sent to live in Cameroon for a year. Through Tina we get introduced to Boko Haram, the way they recruit young members and radicalise them, and the brutal realities of living in a camp under the rule of misogynistic, militaristic and more than probably delusional leader. I found this section to be particularly compelling, thought provoking and insightful with a couple of particularly memorable scenes. One was one especially action-packed and very high stakes, almost made for the big screen. The other was heartbreakingly beautiful full of desperation, love and self-sacrifice. There is also a strong found family thread running through this novel which I enjoyed. This is a book that you do have to pay attention to - shifts in time and perspective are not the clearest, something not helped by the formatting in the ebook I read. However, I felt the extra concentration required was well rewarded.

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