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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
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This isn't an easy book to read. I don't mean the subject matter, though it is in fact hard. It's the narrative. Wamariya's story skips and jumps like a toddler with a TV remote control. Keeping track of the timeline is difficult and it's hard to get a hold on the girl/woman who lived it.
Which is the point.
Wamariya may have experienced her life in chronological order, as we all do, but memory is something altogether different. As she sets it on paper, there is order and structure, it just isn't a story we can sit back and passively take in. We must engage with it.
She doesn't exist for our consumption and she doesn't allow her reader to assume that she might. Her story unfolds exactly as she wishes it to, not as a camera would see it, but as a series of insights, laced with events. The events themselves are not the focus, even if they're the reason we chose the book (or why she is well known and has a published book at all).
Don't dive in expecting a grittier Hotel Rwanda. We the readers don't get to feel good, or tisk at the bad guys, or stoke righteous anger. Wamariya presents her version of memory and loss and grief and survival. This is her offering.
Which is the point.
Wamariya may have experienced her life in chronological order, as we all do, but memory is something altogether different. As she sets it on paper, there is order and structure, it just isn't a story we can sit back and passively take in. We must engage with it.
She doesn't exist for our consumption and she doesn't allow her reader to assume that she might. Her story unfolds exactly as she wishes it to, not as a camera would see it, but as a series of insights, laced with events. The events themselves are not the focus, even if they're the reason we chose the book (or why she is well known and has a published book at all).
Don't dive in expecting a grittier Hotel Rwanda. We the readers don't get to feel good, or tisk at the bad guys, or stoke righteous anger. Wamariya presents her version of memory and loss and grief and survival. This is her offering.
Incredible.
This is a truly exceptional memoir by a an incredibly strong woman, with a remarkable capacity for story telling. It is beautifully written with intellectual and deeply emotional meaning. The author is an extremely smart, brave woman, whose entire life has been impacted by the deep scars of war.
The memoir tells about a part of history that is often neglected and forgotten. This is one woman's account of her experience during the genocide in Rwanda, living as a refugee throughout Africa for 6 years and eventually coming to the United States. I found her parallels to the life of Eli Wiesel, (who she come to know through her life), as well as her comparisons to the writings of W.G. Sebald as deeply profound.
In today’s world, this is a story that absolutely must be read and shared.
This is a truly exceptional memoir by a an incredibly strong woman, with a remarkable capacity for story telling. It is beautifully written with intellectual and deeply emotional meaning. The author is an extremely smart, brave woman, whose entire life has been impacted by the deep scars of war.
The memoir tells about a part of history that is often neglected and forgotten. This is one woman's account of her experience during the genocide in Rwanda, living as a refugee throughout Africa for 6 years and eventually coming to the United States. I found her parallels to the life of Eli Wiesel, (who she come to know through her life), as well as her comparisons to the writings of W.G. Sebald as deeply profound.
In today’s world, this is a story that absolutely must be read and shared.
Very affecting story contrasting the despair, terror and drudgery of wandering through refugee camps with the brittle security of life in the US, where survival depends on fulfilling American fantasies of the plucky survivor:
I know I have been given a chore: Please assume this identity: Oprah’s special genocide survivor, long lost daughter made good. In that narrative, that brilliant fairy tale, I was the clever child who induced the fairy godmother to bring her parents back to life. I was to fill that slot on the show and in viewers’ minds. The title “The Oprah girl: came with a dramatic story line, a happy ending and a glamorous costume.
While there is no fairy tale ending, Wamiariya and her remarkable sister Claire manage to make a life for themselves in their own terms.
I know I have been given a chore: Please assume this identity: Oprah’s special genocide survivor, long lost daughter made good. In that narrative, that brilliant fairy tale, I was the clever child who induced the fairy godmother to bring her parents back to life. I was to fill that slot on the show and in viewers’ minds. The title “The Oprah girl: came with a dramatic story line, a happy ending and a glamorous costume.
While there is no fairy tale ending, Wamiariya and her remarkable sister Claire manage to make a life for themselves in their own terms.
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
View of war from the perspective of a child, and the ensuing problems that come after.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced