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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I can't decide if this book should have been shorter or longer. The story was engaging and well written, and the characters and setting well developed. But the bulk of the book deals with the events of a few years in the Congo while the last few chapters cover decades.
Somehow I think I would have found the ending more satisfying if we either got to spend more time with the characters down the road to see how the events early in the story shaped them or if we just got a chance to check in with them briefly at the end. As it was, I felt kind of teased by the last few chapters.
That said... I'm glad I read the book and I plan to add some more Kingsolver titles to my to-read list. Having actually started with her least typical work, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, it's interesting to see how she wove the story of food even into this 15 year old book.
Somehow I think I would have found the ending more satisfying if we either got to spend more time with the characters down the road to see how the events early in the story shaped them or if we just got a chance to check in with them briefly at the end. As it was, I felt kind of teased by the last few chapters.
That said... I'm glad I read the book and I plan to add some more Kingsolver titles to my to-read list. Having actually started with her least typical work, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, it's interesting to see how she wove the story of food even into this 15 year old book.
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I suppose I have to give this book at least one star for having made it to the end. But it was a hate read, or rather, a reading out of spite. There was literally nothing about this book that I liked - it was over 500 pages of sycophantic nonsense that bemoaned the atrocities done to Africa in the name of religion and commerce, all told through a white family’s eyes. And through a family with characters that are so painfully forced to represent tropes, themes, ideas, and other drivel the author wished to put into their vacuous minds.
You have a WWII veteran with PTSD who experiences religious psychosis and becomes a fire and brimstone southern Baptist preacher who dutifully extols the virtues of the Apocrypha? Talk about incongruity. Then you have the wife, a backwards girl from the backwards and rural south who knows nothing of the world and has to reconcile her complicitness in her caniving husband’s lust for power. Then there’s the four daughters, who each represent four loathsome heads of the apocalypse, except the apocalypse is loathsome writing. There is nothing redeeming about these characters at all. They’re racist, sexist, misogynistic, violent, greedy, shallow-minded, and uneducated. The only thing the author does a good job of is impressing upon the reader the extent to which this family is so backwards that some would call them white trash by the standards of the novel’s timeline, and by today’s standards.
There are so many five and four star reviews of this book, extolling its ability to call our American missionaries and the impact European and American countries had on the continent of Africa. I suppose this book is revolutionary and eye opening if you didn’t pay much attention in high school or world history. But even if this book was good at doing that (which it isn’t, the prose is so disgustingly pretentious and high brow that it’s just cliche and tiresome), anyone with a half critical mind would realize that is book has such a massive blind spot. It tells the story of colonialism, of a continent struggling to survive against racism, capitalism, and greed, all through the viewpoint of the oppressor. The book goes to great lengths to condemn white people, such that one of the characters spends her adult life on a self flagellating approach to life where she punishes herself for her whiteness. And yet still cannot take the time to see past her white privilege and make herself the center of attention.
I could honestly rant about this book for hours and it still wouldn’t make a dent in the amount of time wasted in reading this book. I feel sorry for all the trees cut down in vain to allow this performative drivel to be published and heralded as the pinnacle of good writing. I’ll be loathe to ever pick up a book by this author again, for she can keep her trite and meaningless books with gilded prose and shoddy characterization.
You have a WWII veteran with PTSD who experiences religious psychosis and becomes a fire and brimstone southern Baptist preacher who dutifully extols the virtues of the Apocrypha? Talk about incongruity. Then you have the wife, a backwards girl from the backwards and rural south who knows nothing of the world and has to reconcile her complicitness in her caniving husband’s lust for power. Then there’s the four daughters, who each represent four loathsome heads of the apocalypse, except the apocalypse is loathsome writing. There is nothing redeeming about these characters at all. They’re racist, sexist, misogynistic, violent, greedy, shallow-minded, and uneducated. The only thing the author does a good job of is impressing upon the reader the extent to which this family is so backwards that some would call them white trash by the standards of the novel’s timeline, and by today’s standards.
There are so many five and four star reviews of this book, extolling its ability to call our American missionaries and the impact European and American countries had on the continent of Africa. I suppose this book is revolutionary and eye opening if you didn’t pay much attention in high school or world history. But even if this book was good at doing that (which it isn’t, the prose is so disgustingly pretentious and high brow that it’s just cliche and tiresome), anyone with a half critical mind would realize that is book has such a massive blind spot. It tells the story of colonialism, of a continent struggling to survive against racism, capitalism, and greed, all through the viewpoint of the oppressor. The book goes to great lengths to condemn white people, such that one of the characters spends her adult life on a self flagellating approach to life where she punishes herself for her whiteness. And yet still cannot take the time to see past her white privilege and make herself the center of attention.
I could honestly rant about this book for hours and it still wouldn’t make a dent in the amount of time wasted in reading this book. I feel sorry for all the trees cut down in vain to allow this performative drivel to be published and heralded as the pinnacle of good writing. I’ll be loathe to ever pick up a book by this author again, for she can keep her trite and meaningless books with gilded prose and shoddy characterization.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Infertility, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, Cannibalism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I remember that I didn't like this book very much initially, but the more you read it the more you get wrapped up in the family and the story. By the end of it I loved it very much.
This book was interesting at times, but I often found myself getting bored and really working to just get through it. However, I really enjoyed how the story was told from the point of view of the four sisters, and occasionally their mother. And I also have to add that the book did get better towards the end.
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
What I liked best (and I enjoyed this book immensely) was the different voices of the four daughters and the mother. It was fun to experience their impressions -- especially their early impressions -- of their neighbors in a Congolese village. Being rather anti-missionary in general, I enjoyed their sardonic views of the father's attempts to convert and baptize the residents. I was both amused and horrified by the continuing inability to adapt shown by almost everyone in the American family. I liked the continuation into the adult lives of the daughters, although parts of that seemed perfunctory. There's a lot of humor in this book, but my feelings at the end were mostly sad -- wistfully so. It's hard to explain, but it felt like leaving Africa, a land with so much sadness, with such strong, resilient people in it.
really good. ending not so strong but it happens. want to re read for language moments… struck by the attention to how to live after doing harm, being a part of evil. also no more cutesifying eisenhower!