leener33 's review for:

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya

4.0

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I rate this book with some trepidation, as one of Wamariya's main themes seems to be that no one else can fully understand or identify with her story, so to evaluate it in some fashion seems anathema. Another theme is Wamariya's struggle to understand herself, and so, as a high school English teacher, I might consider reading it in a unit on personal identity rather than one on genocide, a term she discusses with some loathing as it is indeed too tidy a description for the horrors she endured as a young Rwandan refugee roaming through various war-torn African nations. Thanks to goodreads and Doubleday for the advanced copy.


Side note (and a vague spoiler): I would personally like to know if Rob ever received the justice he deserved for being a despicable human being.