You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
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
3.5. Wamariya's book is well written and inherently compelling, but I wished that she would have better contextualized her own story by stepping outside her point of view to explore the broader story of Rwanda. Factual information about the war felt thin, and although I realize that staying with her own point of view was a stylistic choice, the whole story would have been more effective if it broadened its lens and allowed readers to see what was happening around the narrator.
I the end I wound up loving this book. In the beginning I was struggling with it. Not because it was a bad story, not at all but I found myself getting frustrated with the past and present, back and forth. I got mad at Claire most of the book. I have so many questions. I felt like I learned a lot but I wanted to know more about the family. Like the last couple chapters I felt was rushed but all of a sudden it seemed like it started to really capture my attention.
I suck at reviews when it comes to writing about a book.
Overall, I recommend this book. I sadly do not know much about the genocide that took place and I was old enough to understand and now I want to learn more.
I suck at reviews when it comes to writing about a book.
Overall, I recommend this book. I sadly do not know much about the genocide that took place and I was old enough to understand and now I want to learn more.
Memoirs are tricky for me to read. In many ways I feel like I am violating a space so personal and sacred. I have nothing to review or to comment, because the events in the memory and the personal narrative are not for me, but to me. Memoirs are crucial for all of us to read often as they help us experience a tinge of empathy that we maybe otherwise wouldn't have had.
This memoir is from Clemantine (Clem-an-teen) and her memories of her being a refugee in the Rwandan genocide. I can't say it was amazing, because how can you sum up a lifetime of pain, hurt, and sorrow, that you didn't experience?
I can say, that I learned a great deal from Clemantine and hope you'll give it a read too.
This memoir is from Clemantine (Clem-an-teen) and her memories of her being a refugee in the Rwandan genocide. I can't say it was amazing, because how can you sum up a lifetime of pain, hurt, and sorrow, that you didn't experience?
I can say, that I learned a great deal from Clemantine and hope you'll give it a read too.
“Battlefield, a directionless, disorienting fog of violence”
Though I have a bunch of pages in my diary filled with my favourite quotes from the book, I guess this one sums up the feeling of the author.
The girl who smiled beads is a memoir of the Author Clementine Wamariya. She talks about the genocide (The civil war) in Rwanda. The aftermath of the war on the lives of people who had nothing to with it. Clementine was 6 years old when she had to run away with her sister Claire because of the civil war in Rwanda. They lived in various refugee camps, crossed various borders, lived as refugees in many countries before landing in USA.
Clementine and Claire are refugees who after struggling for more than 6-7 years gets settled in The United States. Clementine who was a teenage girl by the time they get in USA, gets adopted by a family and gets a ‘chance’ to study. She writes an essay on her favourite book ‘Night’(based on the same topic) for Oprah’s essay competition and gets the opportunity to be on the show.
This is where her story begins where she starts sharing her REAL story.
“I knew I was six, Age made no sense anymore”
“Bodies were scattered everywhere, lifeless yet alive”
“It’s strange how you go from being a person who is away from home to a person with no home at all”
“We walked for hours, until everything hurt. Not toward anything. JUST AWAY”
“THEM. Always plural.
THEM were not welcomed.
THEM were not guests”
These are some of the quotes from the book I found that conveys what’s in the book more precisely.
The book is written in a manner that you wouldn’t want to keep it aside. There will be times when you would want and even pray to god that this must be fictional. This shouldn’t be real.
What war brings is something unimaginable and what a person goes through because of the war is so hard to put into words.
A six year old, our author in the book says in one sentence everything we need to know about the war:
“I never imagined that civilisation could look so forlorn”
“I had so much to share & nothing at all to share. We all loved lives my parents never dreamed of us having”
The book is written In such a manner that you would want to read every page twice or thrice to make yourself sure of what you just read. You would want everything that is written in the book to end just there. You would want to have a happy ever after for every single person. There will be times when you will be scared to turn the page. You will cry. And more than anything you will be grateful for everything, I repeat, everything you have.The book is talking about a journey you don’t want anybody in the world to take.
It’s a must have book in your library.
The writing style gets all the points in the world.
I can’t thank enough Clementine for introducing me to Claire. I would be grateful if I can be even 1% of the person she is.
You still haven’t got the whole point??
Ohh come on, go get yourself a copy. NOW.
My very first 5
Though I have a bunch of pages in my diary filled with my favourite quotes from the book, I guess this one sums up the feeling of the author.
The girl who smiled beads is a memoir of the Author Clementine Wamariya. She talks about the genocide (The civil war) in Rwanda. The aftermath of the war on the lives of people who had nothing to with it. Clementine was 6 years old when she had to run away with her sister Claire because of the civil war in Rwanda. They lived in various refugee camps, crossed various borders, lived as refugees in many countries before landing in USA.
Clementine and Claire are refugees who after struggling for more than 6-7 years gets settled in The United States. Clementine who was a teenage girl by the time they get in USA, gets adopted by a family and gets a ‘chance’ to study. She writes an essay on her favourite book ‘Night’(based on the same topic) for Oprah’s essay competition and gets the opportunity to be on the show.
This is where her story begins where she starts sharing her REAL story.
“I knew I was six, Age made no sense anymore”
“Bodies were scattered everywhere, lifeless yet alive”
“It’s strange how you go from being a person who is away from home to a person with no home at all”
“We walked for hours, until everything hurt. Not toward anything. JUST AWAY”
“THEM. Always plural.
THEM were not welcomed.
THEM were not guests”
These are some of the quotes from the book I found that conveys what’s in the book more precisely.
The book is written in a manner that you wouldn’t want to keep it aside. There will be times when you would want and even pray to god that this must be fictional. This shouldn’t be real.
What war brings is something unimaginable and what a person goes through because of the war is so hard to put into words.
A six year old, our author in the book says in one sentence everything we need to know about the war:
“I never imagined that civilisation could look so forlorn”
“I had so much to share & nothing at all to share. We all loved lives my parents never dreamed of us having”
The book is written In such a manner that you would want to read every page twice or thrice to make yourself sure of what you just read. You would want everything that is written in the book to end just there. You would want to have a happy ever after for every single person. There will be times when you will be scared to turn the page. You will cry. And more than anything you will be grateful for everything, I repeat, everything you have.The book is talking about a journey you don’t want anybody in the world to take.
It’s a must have book in your library.
The writing style gets all the points in the world.
I can’t thank enough Clementine for introducing me to Claire. I would be grateful if I can be even 1% of the person she is.
You still haven’t got the whole point??
Ohh come on, go get yourself a copy. NOW.
My very first 5
I listened to the audiobook and really didn’t like the narrator, so I think I would have enjoyed this more if I had a hard copy. That said, Clemantine’s story is incredibly powerful.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Excellent book. There is so much to be said about this from the writing, to the story, to the people involved, the suffering, the truth laid bare here. First, this book is very powerful. It takes that power from the woman who tells us her story and her suffering, to the story itself (the conflict, the hiding, the wars, the women, the refugees, the starvation, and everything in between), to the women who inhabit this story and their strength and also their fears and weaknesses. Clementine was honest, in a sharp, often brutal way and I appreciated that honesty. So often we temper stories of suffering to make them more palatable and Clementine did not, she forced the harsh glaring truth to her readers and made them think, think real hard, about what happened in Africa. And through that she also grappled with what it meant to be her: a survivor, a refugee, a woman, a student, a daughter, a sister, a child. She tried to find the language that could express herself and her situation, but then admitted that she is still struggling to find the words that can encompass such hate and horror. Her theme of language and connection and belonging was emotional and jarring, but also human. She was bringing herself back to humanity by trying to find these word when, as a refugee, she tells us she tried to fight to keep her dignity and humanity. It is something I can never pictured, never even truly imagine, the idea of being lost and foundering, not longer belonging to a home, escaping over and over, trying to scrape the last bits of myself into life. Clementine does such a powerful, moving, emphatic job at presenting this to us in the context of her story. She begins with the briefest memories of her time as a child in Rwanda and the stories her nanny told about the girl who smiled beads. She takes us back and forth, from her more recent time in America to her past and her traumas. She is both a teacher and a storyteller in her book, while also forcing her readers to see the pain and the indignities and the obliviousness of Westerners. She often discusses how these traumas and sufferings forced her apart, not closer, to her family. that the chasm between caused by fear, resentment, years apart did so much damage besides the physical damage of the conflicts she escaped from. One of the most poignant lines to me was her critique how we speak of the conflict, using the word genocide:
"genocide... the word is hollow, true but disingenuous, a performance, the worst kind of lie." (p. 93)
This line sets a tone, sets an image and a thought, something uncomfortable about our discussions of countries torn apart by colonialism. I will be thinking of this passage for quite some time.
"genocide... the word is hollow, true but disingenuous, a performance, the worst kind of lie." (p. 93)
This line sets a tone, sets an image and a thought, something uncomfortable about our discussions of countries torn apart by colonialism. I will be thinking of this passage for quite some time.
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
A very honest memoir of a young girl and her sister who were forced to flee as refugees during the Rwandan genocide. Lost a star because I felt the end started getting a little preachy about how current refugee crises are being handle incorrectly. I was more interested in the writers struggle with identity and I wish she made a more concerted effort to speak more directly about that. Overall, though, this was a short fast read and I would recommend to anyone who is interested in current events, explorations in identity, and triumph in stressful situations.
Wow!! So many emotions while reading this book. Very enlightening!!