Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer

2 reviews

kathrun006's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I am not the target audience but I still enjoyed it.
It is worth mentioning that this is a story about an African girl set in Africa by a white author. While the author seems to know the culture, you can see some.of her biases as an outsider. If you are looking for a cool exciting story, this book is great but if you are looking for representation of the peoples of Mozambique, I don't recomend. If that is what you are after, find something by a member of that culture. They can represent their own culture better than any outsider. 

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peachmoni's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-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

3.5

I always wonder what white people's goal is when they write about Africa. For this author, I hope she wrote this and other books set in Zimbabwe because she wanted to give representation to African girls. However, I imagine that there would be a lot of implicit and explicit bias to overcome in writing this story.

I learned that the author lived in Zimbabwe for some time, and I think it's clear she did her research to write this book. I also can imagine that, in the 90s, this was probably one of the few books about an African girl set in Africa... but I still feel a little uncomfortable.

(That said, I did enjoy the book for the most part.)

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