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923 reviews for:
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil
4.25 AVERAGE
923 reviews for:
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil
4.25 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed the writing style. The sentences are not long and complicated and filled with commas, like the annoying way I write. Instead she is concise. And every sentence was meaningful. I would not remove a single one.
It takes a long time to create the division that will cause neighbor to turn on neighbor. You have to sow the seeds of discord and then be patient. But if you do it right, and you take your time, you can make people rise up against each other with violence.
That is the story of Rwanda. That is the story of every time a people turned against their own.
That is the story of Rwanda. That is the story of every time a people turned against their own.
The most thought provoking book I read in 2019. In today's tumultuous times this book should be required reading. It is not often that one can hear directly from female refugees about their experience. A powerful story of both resilience, and the permanent pain caused by dislocation.
This story absolutely demands your attention, and shares one of the most authentic voices I've ever heard. When a person is this generous with their feelings and experience, it just does something to the writing that is nearly impossible to put into words, but I'm so grateful Clementine Wamariya's generosity in this story.
This book is haunting, provocative, tragic, hopeful, lyrical, and one hundred percent true in ways few of us will experience or truly grasp. Even the title is subtle. The author survived years of being on the run in Africa from one warring faction to another, after fleeing her home in Rwanda with her sister. Only later would it be declared a genocide. There her family had been well to do - beyond losing everything they owned, they lost each other - two sisters separated from the rest. I have read a lot of memoirs - this one will stay with me. She and her sister eventually came to the US as refugees - and there her life takes on other extremes. Her path crossed with Oprah Winfrey and Elie Wiesel in an unexpected way and today she works with the USHMM in Washington DC as a human rights activist. She has seen the worst, survived the extremes, and been blessed in many ways, though they will never compensate for the huge losses and years of hurt. And the title? It refers to a Rwandan legend that spoke to Clemantine. "The Girl who smiled beads gave me a way to go through the world, to believe in my own agency and my right to make decisions for myself..."
Well...it was accessible, and wasn't a billion pages of really depressing war stuff, but the fact that she kept going "this is not EVERYONE'S war story, this is MY war story" kind of made it...less accessible? Like, I kind of feel like the whole point of "I lived through some damn rough stuff and made it through the other side and here's how you can relate to me" is really all about the empathy aspect, and for Clemantine to continually be telling us that "this isn't everyone's story" felt like the scope kept getting narrower and narrower.
(Also I know I'm heartless but just personally, the whole grossness with her sister and her abusive husband just made me sick to my stomach and WHY did they go back to the last bad place when things were finally looking up in South Africa?????)
(Also I know I'm heartless but just personally, the whole grossness with her sister and her abusive husband just made me sick to my stomach and WHY did they go back to the last bad place when things were finally looking up in South Africa?????)
So many people have recommended this book to me over the years, and I’m glad that I finally prioritized it recently. This memoir is the author’s story of surviving the Rwandan genocide, migrating throughout Africa, and then eventually moving to the United States and sharing her experience. One of my favorite audiobook readers, Robin Miles, was the voice of the production I listened to, and she brought so much warmth and heart to it. I really appreciated how nuanced this account was, especially in contrast to the author’s experience of being on the Oprah show, where her story was flattened out into a tidy narrative, complete with a surprise appearance by her family, who she had not seen in years and years (MAJOR cringing at that part). I recommend this book for anyone interested in social justice or memoir fans in general. Be aware of content including violence, genocide, and children’s suffering.
This memoir made me think a lot about survivor-centered storytelling in my own advocacy, especially this month for Dressember. I’m inclined to become saturated with inputs and the overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem of human trafficking, and this line from the book really stood out to me: “It's truly impossible to hold all the single experiences of suffering in the world in your mind at the same time. The human brain can't handle that much pain. You cannot differentiate and empathize with each of those distinct people. You cannot hear each of their stories and recognize each individual as strong and special and continue on with your day.” I believe that we have a responsibility to be informed and the compassion to be empathetic, but we are also human beings with limits for pain. I hope that we can all engage thoughtfully and rest mindfully so that we can invest in what’s most important to each of us.
This memoir made me think a lot about survivor-centered storytelling in my own advocacy, especially this month for Dressember. I’m inclined to become saturated with inputs and the overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem of human trafficking, and this line from the book really stood out to me: “It's truly impossible to hold all the single experiences of suffering in the world in your mind at the same time. The human brain can't handle that much pain. You cannot differentiate and empathize with each of those distinct people. You cannot hear each of their stories and recognize each individual as strong and special and continue on with your day.” I believe that we have a responsibility to be informed and the compassion to be empathetic, but we are also human beings with limits for pain. I hope that we can all engage thoughtfully and rest mindfully so that we can invest in what’s most important to each of us.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Wow. The raw heartbreak, terror, and pain that Clementine experienced claws through the book and into your heart. The story, her memories, her pain...it all translates into the page in an amazing memoir.
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced