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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
medium-paced
pros: this book made me feel lots of things, made me nostalgic and homesick and feel desperately sorry for lots of the characters, writing was great, I felt like I was really feeling what Darling was feeling
cons: there were no characters I really loved, the chapters often felt a little disjointed and the change in time didn't always feel like it made sense, felt like it could have done with a bit more editing, the end felt a bit abrupt and random
cons: there were no characters I really loved, the chapters often felt a little disjointed and the change in time didn't always feel like it made sense, felt like it could have done with a bit more editing, the end felt a bit abrupt and random
NoViolet Bulawayo does a great job of portraying Darling's character as it changes. At the beginning, she is a child who plays games and innocently goes about her life trying to forget her traumatic memories. When she moves to America, she starts trying to assimilate herself, meticulously perfecting her American accent. She neglects her old friends. Her innocence is ripped from her by her new friends. At the end, she is stuck between two identities: the child who is used to suffering and laughs at those who pamper themselves and a teenager who skips school for the mall and has lost all naïveté through the internet. This novel is a powerful reminder of the suffering of others and that perspective can change everything.
I loved this one and absolutely could not put it down. I read We Need New Names on my flights to Nairobi from DFW, and it was a brilliant read.
Bulawayo speaks from understanding and experience. She's had the eyes of the little kid running around in Africa, dealing with NGOs. She knows the fear and adjustment of being an immigrant - and in this book's case, an illegal immigrant. She knows what it means to belong in multiple countries at once, and the choruses throughout the chapters echo that.
Everyone working with international groups should read this one.
Bulawayo speaks from understanding and experience. She's had the eyes of the little kid running around in Africa, dealing with NGOs. She knows the fear and adjustment of being an immigrant - and in this book's case, an illegal immigrant. She knows what it means to belong in multiple countries at once, and the choruses throughout the chapters echo that.
Everyone working with international groups should read this one.
This story is about Darling who lives in Zimbabwe with her friends and family. At 10 years old, she spends most of her days with her friends playing pretend, stealing fruit, and going to school. Soon - things change in Zimbabwe and it becomes a dangerous place to be. The schools close. Darling has a chance to leave it all behind and go to America to live with an aunt. Her family sends her knowing she will be safe.
After dreaming of America and all that she and her friends thought she would get to see and do there, reality hit her hard. While her life was better than it was in Zimbabwe, it wasn't what she thought it would be. She was left witht the struggles of being an immigrant in a foreign land and trying to adjust to what she left behind.
I really liked this book. I think it is well written and rich in descriptive text. The author tells the story well from a child's point of view. It doesn't dig deep into the problems of Zimbabwe, however. It does tell a poignant story of how a child spent her days with her best friends - dreaming and hoping like all children do. I did enjoy the part of the book that took place in Zimbabwe more than the half that took place in America, and I was hoping that the author returned her character back to Zimbabwe - at least for a visit, yet she did not.
Great book. I highly recommend.
Occasionally, when reading, I will bookmark pages of importance, relevance or beauty, so when I happen upon literary nostalgia, I can see what I loved about a book the first time. With “We Need New Names” every page was a profound revelation.
When we first meet Darling, she is ten and stealing guavas, living in a “temporary” shanty town called “Paradise” held up only by sticks and dreams. Her best friend Chipo is pregnant to her grandfather. NGOs visit with smiles and optimistic objectives, but little understanding by the West seems satirical in juxtaposition to the bleak realities of Paradise.
This isn’t to say Butamayo’s novel is without humour- you are enticed by the antics of innocent children and laugh despite their problems.
“We Need New Names” is emotionally articulate and complete; this book has a sense of being bigger than readers opinions, than the ideas as it encompasses. This book is not merely a “portrait of Africa” as some critics claim. Whilst this debut is set in Zimbabwe, there is not one human experience that remains untouched by Bulawayo’s “We Need New Names”.
Butamayo is set to join other great “displaced” novelists: JM Coetzee and Junot Diaz. A poignant read and worthy of the Man Booker, for which it is shortlisted.
When we first meet Darling, she is ten and stealing guavas, living in a “temporary” shanty town called “Paradise” held up only by sticks and dreams. Her best friend Chipo is pregnant to her grandfather. NGOs visit with smiles and optimistic objectives, but little understanding by the West seems satirical in juxtaposition to the bleak realities of Paradise.
This isn’t to say Butamayo’s novel is without humour- you are enticed by the antics of innocent children and laugh despite their problems.
“We Need New Names” is emotionally articulate and complete; this book has a sense of being bigger than readers opinions, than the ideas as it encompasses. This book is not merely a “portrait of Africa” as some critics claim. Whilst this debut is set in Zimbabwe, there is not one human experience that remains untouched by Bulawayo’s “We Need New Names”.
Butamayo is set to join other great “displaced” novelists: JM Coetzee and Junot Diaz. A poignant read and worthy of the Man Booker, for which it is shortlisted.
This story is about Darling who lives in Zimbabwe with her friends and family. At 10 years old, she spends most of her days with her friends playing pretend, stealing fruit, and going to school. Soon - things change in Zimbabwe and it becomes a dangerous place to be. The schools close. Darling has a chance to leave it all behind and go to America to live with an aunt. Her family sends her knowing she will be safe.
After dreaming of America and all that she and her friends thought she would get to see and do there, reality hit her hard. While her life was better than it was in Zimbabwe, it wasn't what she thought it would be. She was left witht the struggles of being an immigrant in a foreign land and trying to adjust to what she left behind.
I really liked this book. I think it is well written and rich in descriptive text. The author tells the story well from a child's point of view. It doesn't dig deep into the problems of Zimbabwe, however. It does tell a poignant story of how a child spent her days with her best friends - dreaming and hoping like all children do. I did enjoy the part of the book that took place in Zimbabwe more than the half that took place in America, and I was hoping that the author returned her character back to Zimbabwe - at least for a visit, yet she did not.
Great book. I highly recommend.
After dreaming of America and all that she and her friends thought she would get to see and do there, reality hit her hard. While her life was better than it was in Zimbabwe, it wasn't what she thought it would be. She was left witht the struggles of being an immigrant in a foreign land and trying to adjust to what she left behind.
I really liked this book. I think it is well written and rich in descriptive text. The author tells the story well from a child's point of view. It doesn't dig deep into the problems of Zimbabwe, however. It does tell a poignant story of how a child spent her days with her best friends - dreaming and hoping like all children do. I did enjoy the part of the book that took place in Zimbabwe more than the half that took place in America, and I was hoping that the author returned her character back to Zimbabwe - at least for a visit, yet she did not.
Great book. I highly recommend.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Astounding!
Bulawayo takes hard things - conflict in Africa, child narrators of adult fiction, telling an all too common story in a new and brilliant way - and makes an incredible DEBUT novel. The language, the voice, the characters...all were incredible. Read this book for all of it. Even if you just read it for two separate short chapters that read like prose poems, read it. You will feel feels and be inspired by the good books like this that are in the world. (And maybe also be inspired to make change in the actual world that makes books like these true and necessary).
Bulawayo takes hard things - conflict in Africa, child narrators of adult fiction, telling an all too common story in a new and brilliant way - and makes an incredible DEBUT novel. The language, the voice, the characters...all were incredible. Read this book for all of it. Even if you just read it for two separate short chapters that read like prose poems, read it. You will feel feels and be inspired by the good books like this that are in the world. (And maybe also be inspired to make change in the actual world that makes books like these true and necessary).
NoViolet Bulawayo’s ten-year-old Darling tells her story with all the sassy and vibrant honesty of a young girl who is fully accepting of and in love with the precarious life she is offered growing up largely unsupervised and in a greatly changing Zimbabwe. When Darling moves to the United States, readers are treated to an illumining, funny, heartbreaking, and eye-opening look at two cultural perspectives on friendship, family, and consumerism.