You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2025: Reread Suneeta's lyrical novella about colonialist violence within the domestic sphere. Set in Portugal-controlled Angola, and focusing on a family from former Portugal-controlled Goa in India, this explores the fragile nature of colonialist power, and the bitterness of complicity in that power from the perspective of a child. Let the words stream over you and settle in your gut.
Original review, 2022: A rich, lyrical novella about a Goan family living in Angola in the years leading up to its independence from Portugal.
The author is not only a Sydney woman, but is also my new coworker! She's doing a literary studies PhD alongside working with my team part time and when I heard she had two literary books published I was like..... sign me tf up immediately. No regrets, this was jaw droppingly beautiful, incredibly dense and thoughtful, and really compelling.
Read if you like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, plus a bit of Joseph Conrad for good measure.
Original review, 2022: A rich, lyrical novella about a Goan family living in Angola in the years leading up to its independence from Portugal.
The author is not only a Sydney woman, but is also my new coworker! She's doing a literary studies PhD alongside working with my team part time and when I heard she had two literary books published I was like..... sign me tf up immediately. No regrets, this was jaw droppingly beautiful, incredibly dense and thoughtful, and really compelling.
Read if you like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, plus a bit of Joseph Conrad for good measure.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Suicide, Blood, Police brutality, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, War
Moderate: Animal death, Gun violence, Racism, Grief, Pregnancy
Minor: Homophobia, Rape
I feel bad about getting caught up in definitions here. But this didn't really work for me because it felt so elliptical and--for lack of a better word--slippery. There's just not enough connective tissue for me to think of this as a novel, and because it was packaged as a novel, I finished the book wanting more. It's obvious to me that da Costa has talent, and I liked a lot of what I read. But the manuscript read like fragments of a larger work rather than a work in itself.
A gorgeous, understated coming of age story featuring a Goan girl growing up in Portuguese-colonized Angola. Saudade perfectly captures the feeling of swimming in the sea of childhood memory, the way that events that get subconsciously linked together, and the way our understanding of our place in the world grows in complexity as we age, our blind spots shifting and growing smaller, but never disappearing.
As usual, sigaloenta is right--the only jarring moment was when Maria-Cristina suddenly displayed a more sophisticated understanding of Vasco de Gama than the rest of the narrative hinted she would be capable of. I wanted more background on that moment to help it ring true. Otherwise, pitch-perfect.
As usual, sigaloenta is right--the only jarring moment was when Maria-Cristina suddenly displayed a more sophisticated understanding of Vasco de Gama than the rest of the narrative hinted she would be capable of. I wanted more background on that moment to help it ring true. Otherwise, pitch-perfect.
reflective
medium-paced
Saudade is a coming of age story set in Angola in the years leading to independence. One of the things that made this interesting is that the narrator is neither native African nor Portuguese coloniser, but the daughter of Indian immigrants which meant she had a unique perspective. The melancholic tone stood out.
I enjoyed this book, but it felt surreal and dreamlike. Maybe I read it too quickly, but the story didn’t make much of an impact, though the language was lovely. I know it’s about the disintegration of colonialism, but some of the racial language from the protagonist’s mother never felt resolved. As a dreamy narrative of a young and growing woman, it suffered by comparison with Optic Nerve, which I read just after and loved.
This novella explores the sense of loss of homeland through a very specific, stream-of-consciousness story. The book provokes more explorations than it resolves - which is a compliment - engaging with the idea of homesickness/melancholy/home in a fractured colonial world. The lens around the narrator was a little closer than perhaps I wanted - knowing little about the Goan diaspora going in, but it creates an effective coming of age tale.
"How such a story, the terrible spectacle of a man's torture and suffering, could be said to be redemptive, I failed to understand. 'Our Father who art in Heaven,' the congregation now faithfully recited, and I wondered how a god, said to also be among us in spirit, and of whose flesh we were apparently to partake too, might really have accepted that the cathedral itself was built in his name with the labour of so many enslaved natives."
"His face, which I had not thought so at first, grew more handsome the more I looked at it; each time I saw it, it was like coming upon a sight in nature that, existing beneath one's ordinary awareness, suddenly reveals all sorts of unspoken truths, an epiphany...Awake, this face was full of sadness, a saudade - a lostness, a feeling of not having a place in the world."
"On the ferry everyone said I was going home and that it would only be a short journey. Again I had occasion to ponder the meaning of this word, how home may be destroyed by so much strife; how it might be remade from so many makeshift and indiscriminate, even downright unsuitable, materials."
"His face, which I had not thought so at first, grew more handsome the more I looked at it; each time I saw it, it was like coming upon a sight in nature that, existing beneath one's ordinary awareness, suddenly reveals all sorts of unspoken truths, an epiphany...Awake, this face was full of sadness, a saudade - a lostness, a feeling of not having a place in the world."
"On the ferry everyone said I was going home and that it would only be a short journey. Again I had occasion to ponder the meaning of this word, how home may be destroyed by so much strife; how it might be remade from so many makeshift and indiscriminate, even downright unsuitable, materials."