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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
While I think the novel lacked a bit of structure in some areas, I can't help but love We Need New Names. Darling is a fantastic protagonist to follow, and Noviolet Bulawayo's writing is lyrically beautiful. The novel offers up a great dichotomy between the expectation vs reality of America, and offers a critical insight into the immigration of people from Africa into the United States that's important to read. I definitely recommend for fans of Americanah, though the plot and characters are obviously quite different.
There is little I can say about this book that will not utterly fail to give it the attention and kudos it deserves.
I hesitated for awhile to pick this up, African stories can be harsh, unforgiving, and make me feel useless and horrible and, well, white. This book however rightly deserves all the attention it has been getting in the press. Powerful, moving, uplifting, informative, cracklingly funny and gaspingly real.
I wish I could express the longing this built in me, not necessarily to have the horror and ability to overcome, but really to have the connection to culture, family, and homeland, good or bad. To have the ability to see clearly the world as it is, accept it, change it, rail against it, love it.
I need more stars, I need more life, and I need more hugs.
I hesitated for awhile to pick this up, African stories can be harsh, unforgiving, and make me feel useless and horrible and, well, white. This book however rightly deserves all the attention it has been getting in the press. Powerful, moving, uplifting, informative, cracklingly funny and gaspingly real.
I wish I could express the longing this built in me, not necessarily to have the horror and ability to overcome, but really to have the connection to culture, family, and homeland, good or bad. To have the ability to see clearly the world as it is, accept it, change it, rail against it, love it.
I need more stars, I need more life, and I need more hugs.
I really enjoyed this book. I noticed other reviews that called it "disjointed," but since the narrator is a 10 year old child at the beginning and a teen at the end, the disjointedness felt appropriate to me. Instead of pontification on big truths, weighty matters are viewed with the disassociation of a child who might not fully grasp the depth of the issue or have the emotional maturity to think at a deeper level about something.
But there is also a freshness and a frankness to this kind of narrative.
The third to last chapter-- How They Lived-- breaks this barrier of childhood thought, and it is a remarkably powerful commentary on the immigrant experience, deeply insightful, a flood of conflicting emotions about what was lost and what was gained.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and voice of Darling, the child narrator.
But there is also a freshness and a frankness to this kind of narrative.
The third to last chapter-- How They Lived-- breaks this barrier of childhood thought, and it is a remarkably powerful commentary on the immigrant experience, deeply insightful, a flood of conflicting emotions about what was lost and what was gained.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and voice of Darling, the child narrator.
funny
reflective
sad
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:
No
Hmmm what to say about this? The plot is not really there, so much of it is cliched, sentence structure is all over the place and jarring, and she uses the phrase "things fall apart" about 20 times- no joke. But the voice is powerful, nihilistic and stays with you. What a voice. For that it gets a 3.4.
I’ve been making a bit of a thing over the last couple of years, to try and vary my reading. I’ve read more prize nominated books than I used to and I’ve been trawling Literary ‘Best book’ lists. This is one such book. The reason it appealed to me is the subject matter. I don’t read a lot of books about other cultures, and displacement. That’s something I want to change. It sounded really appealing and the cover’s I’ve seen are beautiful, I’m going to have to get the print version of the book so it can sit on my shelf.
The story is about Darling who originally comes from Zimbabwe, and it’s split into two times. Her childhood in Zimbabwe, and her teens in America. She has a growing narrative voice, meaning that it is sometimes hard to understand the earlier chapters and as her language develops with age, the prose does too. The main drive force of the novel is the idea of escape to another place. In Zimbabwe, she dreams of living in America. In America, she is nostalgic for home in Zimbabwe. It’s a very subtle and bitter-sweet story.
I can’t really comment on how it is like to leave a place you call home. I’ve lived in the same house all my life and when I finally did venture out for university I went to a university half an hour a way from home. I’ve never had that feeling of not belonging to a place. For that I’m fortunate. But what I got from this book was a little bit of understanding. I really empathised with Darling and what she felt and went through. Some parts of the book were horrifying. I still can’t get over the scene with Chimpo’s Belly. It chilled me.
In terms of an enjoyable read, I wouldn’t put it up there as a favourite. But I have a feeling it has a lot to be gained through rereading. It is another book I would like to analyse a little bit more. Maybe next year I’ll read it again.
The story is about Darling who originally comes from Zimbabwe, and it’s split into two times. Her childhood in Zimbabwe, and her teens in America. She has a growing narrative voice, meaning that it is sometimes hard to understand the earlier chapters and as her language develops with age, the prose does too. The main drive force of the novel is the idea of escape to another place. In Zimbabwe, she dreams of living in America. In America, she is nostalgic for home in Zimbabwe. It’s a very subtle and bitter-sweet story.
I can’t really comment on how it is like to leave a place you call home. I’ve lived in the same house all my life and when I finally did venture out for university I went to a university half an hour a way from home. I’ve never had that feeling of not belonging to a place. For that I’m fortunate. But what I got from this book was a little bit of understanding. I really empathised with Darling and what she felt and went through. Some parts of the book were horrifying. I still can’t get over the scene with Chimpo’s Belly. It chilled me.
In terms of an enjoyable read, I wouldn’t put it up there as a favourite. But I have a feeling it has a lot to be gained through rereading. It is another book I would like to analyse a little bit more. Maybe next year I’ll read it again.
Overall I liked it.
The fragmented writing style, going from scene to another with no apparent relevance in between them, and the shifts in narrative (a child narrator, a teenage narrator and a collective voice of immigrants) really worked in my opinion. However, there is something definitely lacking in the novel, keeping me from rating it higher, at maximum I would rate it 3,5. My issue is with the overall feeling that I got from reading - the book didn't burn in my fingers and invite me to pick it up. I enjoyed it, but wasn't dazzled by it.
On another note, a lot of other critiques mention the overflow and 'name-dropping' of issues, which bothered them. For me, though, at first I was a bit puzzled by it, but then I started to think about it: who am I to say that these things weren't, in fact, real life for these people, and then why shouldn't they be mentioned in the story, even if just by 'name-dropping'? Especially in the beginning, with the child narrator, can we truly expect a political commentary? It is quite clear from the language used that it is a child focalizer, as well. Then mentioning something like the money in Mother of Bodies' suitcase, or the AIDS ('sickness') epidemic just in a side sentence is okay. More than okay.
The fragmented writing style, going from scene to another with no apparent relevance in between them, and the shifts in narrative (a child narrator, a teenage narrator and a collective voice of immigrants) really worked in my opinion. However, there is something definitely lacking in the novel, keeping me from rating it higher, at maximum I would rate it 3,5. My issue is with the overall feeling that I got from reading - the book didn't burn in my fingers and invite me to pick it up. I enjoyed it, but wasn't dazzled by it.
On another note, a lot of other critiques mention the overflow and 'name-dropping' of issues, which bothered them. For me, though, at first I was a bit puzzled by it, but then I started to think about it: who am I to say that these things weren't, in fact, real life for these people, and then why shouldn't they be mentioned in the story, even if just by 'name-dropping'? Especially in the beginning, with the child narrator, can we truly expect a political commentary? It is quite clear from the language used that it is a child focalizer, as well. Then mentioning something like the money in Mother of Bodies' suitcase, or the AIDS ('sickness') epidemic just in a side sentence is okay. More than okay.
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
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:
Complicated