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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
This is a must read for everyone. Especially if you think you know enough about what it is to be a refugee.
I thought a lot about my review as I read this book. I was initially excited to read it, but became less so as the story continued. My main take away was that this author endured something horrible and never really got the help she needed to come to terms with what happened to her.
She spent a lot of the book getting the story out of her. It felt like she had a stream of consciousness going throughout the book. She jumped around a lot. As if the book was the therapy she desperately needed. This made it hard to read and enjoy.
Another reviewer said “it felt like she was complaining a lot”. I didn’t get that feel. To me she was angry. She was too young to process what was happening and when she got older and came to America she took it out on innocent Americans because she felt they were ignorant. Maybe there were other reasons, too.
All the while she never seemed to appreciate her new life in America. She never appreciated the privilege she was now apart of, because she had nice things and went to Yale. She was no longer in danger and had her sister and her nieces/nephews. She had many people help her and were nice to her.
She came off as attention-seeking (but pushed people away who tried to give it to her), preachy, angry, and felt better than anyone who had never gone through what she had. I hope she is better now. She had things to work through. She needed to talk to someone.
Toward the end it got better. She started letting the reader in on her inner thoughts and feelings. She started to process why she might be thinking or feeling a certain way. I would have liked more of this in the book. I enjoyed this part.
I think she should have started the book where the last 5 chapters are and expanded more on life after the tragedy. After college. What she thought, how she coped, how her life changed, how she rebuilt. It’s more relatable.
As she noted many times no one can really understand unless they’ve been in that kind of situation so it makes it hard for most readers to become immersed and to relate.
She spent a lot of the book getting the story out of her. It felt like she had a stream of consciousness going throughout the book. She jumped around a lot. As if the book was the therapy she desperately needed. This made it hard to read and enjoy.
Another reviewer said “it felt like she was complaining a lot”. I didn’t get that feel. To me she was angry. She was too young to process what was happening and when she got older and came to America she took it out on innocent Americans because she felt they were ignorant. Maybe there were other reasons, too.
All the while she never seemed to appreciate her new life in America. She never appreciated the privilege she was now apart of, because she had nice things and went to Yale. She was no longer in danger and had her sister and her nieces/nephews. She had many people help her and were nice to her.
She came off as attention-seeking (but pushed people away who tried to give it to her), preachy, angry, and felt better than anyone who had never gone through what she had. I hope she is better now. She had things to work through. She needed to talk to someone.
Toward the end it got better. She started letting the reader in on her inner thoughts and feelings. She started to process why she might be thinking or feeling a certain way. I would have liked more of this in the book. I enjoyed this part.
I think she should have started the book where the last 5 chapters are and expanded more on life after the tragedy. After college. What she thought, how she coped, how her life changed, how she rebuilt. It’s more relatable.
As she noted many times no one can really understand unless they’ve been in that kind of situation so it makes it hard for most readers to become immersed and to relate.
I can't rate this, you cannot put a rating on someone's life story.
This isn't a happy story, it's raw and rough and angry. But it's Clematine's story. It's important. We tend to put spokespeople on a pedestal; call them special and brave, when usually they are only one of many. We shouldn't only remember these people, and we should never pretend to understand anything near to what they've experienced. How could a white british girl like me who has never experienced anything near to war, let alone civil war, pretend she understands even a fraction of the hardship or pain someone growing up in the middle of the Rwandan conflict would have gone through?
I also was entirely ignorant of the conflict in Rwanda, and this was very eye-opening. I was 1 when it started so I wasn't old enough to understand if I ever did see images or news about it(bad excuse but it's true).
I definitely recommend this book. Incredibly thoughtprovoking.
This isn't a happy story, it's raw and rough and angry. But it's Clematine's story. It's important. We tend to put spokespeople on a pedestal; call them special and brave, when usually they are only one of many. We shouldn't only remember these people, and we should never pretend to understand anything near to what they've experienced. How could a white british girl like me who has never experienced anything near to war, let alone civil war, pretend she understands even a fraction of the hardship or pain someone growing up in the middle of the Rwandan conflict would have gone through?
I also was entirely ignorant of the conflict in Rwanda, and this was very eye-opening. I was 1 when it started so I wasn't old enough to understand if I ever did see images or news about it(bad excuse but it's true).
I definitely recommend this book. Incredibly thoughtprovoking.
This was a very interesting read, and the author beautifully illustrated her complicated relationship with her own identity as a sister, daughter, refugee, and American.
She comes across as angry, at EVERYONE she writes about, including those who love her. This is obviously a response to her traumatic experiences, and I’m glad she confronts us with her emotions instead of sugar-coating them. But it does make for a difficult read.
She comes across as angry, at EVERYONE she writes about, including those who love her. This is obviously a response to her traumatic experiences, and I’m glad she confronts us with her emotions instead of sugar-coating them. But it does make for a difficult read.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, War
Minor: Rape, Sexual assault
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
Clemantine provided a hell of a narrative about being a refugee that I had never considered before. I enjoyed how she also showed her adult struggles that came as a result of the war and genocide she had to escape as a child. Pacing was a little weird - I personally don't know that the back and forth switches between her being a child and an adult worked for more than 1/4 of the book. Some parts lagged and became repetitive. It's difficult with incredible stories like these because lives and experiences can be had, but not everyone is a good author necessarily.
emotional
sad
The autobiographical account of a girl who lived in Kigali with her brother and sister and parents when her parents made the difficult decision to send her and her sister to stay with their grandparents in another part of the country that they believed might be safer. Thus began a six year journey through seven African countries before Clemantine and her sister Claire were granted refuge status and migrated to the United States.
A very powerful and moving story.
A very powerful and moving story.