Reviews

Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton

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libt392's review against another edition

4.0

This book is a valuable read for all those to understand the threat and fear surrounding AIDS. It was an eye-opening story for me to see how the disease is faced and shunned in 3rd world African countries. This is also a powerful story to examine how communities choose to shun certain individuals and what happens when individuals pass unhealthy superstitions and fears down through the generations.

I have to admit this wasn't an easy read for me. The brutality of Chanda's life and her village's issues are beyond light-hearted. But the ending made all my suffering worth it. Readers will see the importance of speaking out and working together as a community to seek better resources in facing problems.

fabricate8's review against another edition

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4.0

Chanda’s Secrets
4Q 3P S

Chanda’s Secrets is a novel about a teenage girl in a fictitious African setting. She is not rich, but she loves her family and has dreams to pursue an education. However, people around her are getting sick, but no one really knows why, or at least does not want to admit that is might be AIDS. Because of the stigma surrounding the disease, it continues to spread. Chanda wants to save her family and friends, but finds it difficult when she has no support or way to get help from the community. Everyone else is too scared to do anything that might associate themselves with AIDS. After witnessing the death of several loved ones, and fearing what may happen to her best friend, Chanda has to decide if she can tell the truth about what has been happening.

I really enjoyed this book because it addresses an issue that many still deem as controversial. Whether people want to address it or not, AIDS remains a pressing issue in both the U.S. and abroad. Because people don’t want to talk about a disease that affects millions of people, it continues to spread. Chanda’s Secrets did a good job of demonstrating how problems can escalate when no one wants to discuss them. The main character is likable and the reader can easily sympathize with the difficult position she is in. Although most teens in the US live a very different lifestyle, many also face situations that may be far above their maturity level. Like Chanda, they may have to take care of younger siblings, give up things they love, and deal with loss.

I don’t know that most teen readers would pick this book out on their own, but I think that is a worthwhile one to read because it has an important message about AIDS and about how teens can take action in a small way to change lives.

raejae25's review against another edition

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4.0

This book is a great, but heartbreaking read. The writing is excellent. The author keeps you engaged in the story throughout. My complaint is basic-the author is not African and it shows. It's a good read, an important topic, but I think more needs to be written from the African perspective, the African lens.

aguenther7's review against another edition

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4.0

good fast read about AIDS in africa.

rarewren's review against another edition

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2.0

Sixteen-year-old Chanda must take on the harrowing responsibility of planning her baby sister's funeral, nursing her sick mama, mothering her little siblings, and sheltering her abused best friend--not to mention trying to keep up with school. Compounding her struggles are an obnoxious busybody of a neighbor and an oppressive aura of secrecy and shame surrounding the family. Ultimately Chanda must overcome her own fear of AIDS before bravely confronting the superstitions of her community. With vivid first-person narration portraying the complex emotions of an adolescent, Stratton evokes a fictional Sub-Saharan Africa and chronicles the action of the story at an intense pace.

This is a well-written and absorbing book that I just didn't end up liking very much. I was excited to read it, because I have been seeking out fiction set in Africa and did not yet have young adult books on my radar, and my expectations were probably way too high. The same narration that may well appeal to many readers did not work for me: I wanted a wider view of Chanda's world, with less inner monologue. (THE HUNGER GAMES irked me for the same reason.) I also wish the author had set the story in a real place and adopted a more authentic style of language. Perhaps I would be less fussy if my reading had not come on the heels of THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN (set in real towns near Spokane, with an utterly convincing adolescent narrator) and THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY (set in real Botswana, with a female protagonist my own age). Or perhaps not: I was hooked by the first part of the book, which intimately depicts Chanda's experience planning and attending her sister's funeral and tells the heartbreaking history of her family, but I felt betrayed by the Spielbergian climax and ending.