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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Beautiful. Every character was real enough to touch; each of their perspectives were unique and thought-provoking. A lush, painful, and emotional ode to the Congo and to the differing ways human beings are shaped by trauma.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-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:
Complicated
Wow. It's going to take me a while to process this one I think. But it definitely trumps Demon Copperhead (which I loved so much). I think the fact that so much research has gone into this and it comes from Kingsolver's own experiences of her time in Africa as a child, really makes it for me. It doesn't feel like fiction or history, just events happening in realtime, which is very impressive. At first I'm not sure I liked the multiple perspective angle from each of the daughters. But I grew to understand that it is a really clever device for showing the perspectives of white saviourism, racism, and western interference in Africa at this time. I learnt so much from this book but also really felt I understood the humanity of the characters and their different ways of responding to the events. I don't even think I'm articulating this well but all there is to say is that it was all in all a masterpiece of storytelling.
"There is not justice in this world. ...What there is in this world, I think, is a tendency for human errors to level themselves like water throughout their sphere of influence."
"There's the possibility of balance. Unbearable burdens that the world somehow does bear with a certain grace."
"If chained is where you have been, your arms will always bear marks of the shackles."
"'The air is just blank in America"'
"For every womanly fact of life she doesn't get told, a star of possibility still winks for her on the horizon."
"There is not justice in this world. ...What there is in this world, I think, is a tendency for human errors to level themselves like water throughout their sphere of influence."
"There's the possibility of balance. Unbearable burdens that the world somehow does bear with a certain grace."
"If chained is where you have been, your arms will always bear marks of the shackles."
"'The air is just blank in America"'
"For every womanly fact of life she doesn't get told, a star of possibility still winks for her on the horizon."
This is one of the most impactful and thought provoking books I’ve read. If you choose to read this, know that it will challenge your views of “right” and “wrong”- “Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place. Especially here”. It is a fascinating look at so many things, including missionaries going to Africa - “Christian’s could invent and believe in the parable of the loaves and the fishes, for their farmers can trust in abundance, and ship it to burgeoning cities, where people can afford to spend their lives hardly noticing, or caring, that a seed produces a plant”. You can tell that this piece of historical fiction is highly researched, as the author spends a lot of time weaving the story together. While it is a long book, I found myself moving through it relatively quickly due to how well and beautifully it’s written. I loved the different perspectives of the same events and how each woman had such a different experience of the same childhood.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'd never really considered how much of an imprint a place can leave upon you. And not just the environment, or its climate, or even the living things that inhabit such a place - but the attitudes, the culture, everything!, has such an immense transformative power.
When the Price family uproots their life in Georgia, and sets it down in the middle of Africa, everyone but their father, Nathan, (a reverend and the mastermind of the move) wants to resist the effects of Africa as much as possible. But the Congo immediately proves to be the antithesis of America's excess and its convenience. Reading about their desperate, barely-scraping-by life in a place that they hated made me so angry. Nobody seems happy! And happiness seems to elude this family year after year, mostly because of their father's role as a tyrannical patriarch.
The writing was so interesting, and I especially loved the chapters told from Adah's perspective. I felt that the narrative, split five ways for each of the Price women, really immersed me in each of the characters' personalities.
I was rooting for the family the entire time, hoping they would cut ties with Nathan and finally carve out a life they would be halfway happy with. But just like the title of another book set in a similar location, and as Kingsolver writes in The Poisonwood Bible, "things fall apart." It was hard to love this book when I believed in their pain so completely. I think everyone, in the end, stumbles upon something like contentment, but the road there was pretty bumpy to read about.
When the Price family uproots their life in Georgia, and sets it down in the middle of Africa, everyone but their father, Nathan, (a reverend and the mastermind of the move) wants to resist the effects of Africa as much as possible. But the Congo immediately proves to be the antithesis of America's excess and its convenience. Reading about their desperate, barely-scraping-by life in a place that they hated made me so angry. Nobody seems happy! And happiness seems to elude this family year after year, mostly because of their father's role as a tyrannical patriarch.
The writing was so interesting, and I especially loved the chapters told from Adah's perspective. I felt that the narrative, split five ways for each of the Price women, really immersed me in each of the characters' personalities.
I was rooting for the family the entire time, hoping they would cut ties with Nathan and finally carve out a life they would be halfway happy with. But just like the title of another book set in a similar location, and as Kingsolver writes in The Poisonwood Bible, "things fall apart." It was hard to love this book when I believed in their pain so completely. I think everyone, in the end, stumbles upon something like contentment, but the road there was pretty bumpy to read about.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced