A review by knod78
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

2.0

I'm not going to lie, I had a hard time with this book until probably halfway through it when I got used to the writing style. It was all over the place with the thoughts, sentences, and time period. It reminded me of when my husband says, "Focus," when I talk and then go off on a tangent, which I tend to do. This book was a giant tangent of thoughts. She would literally start a chapter with the first sentence about an antelope (which we don't know is an antelope) and then it just went off for three pages about the parks and monkeys before we finally learn that the animal of the chapter name is in fact an antelope. Sometimes, we didn't get back to the original thought and just kept going on with the tangent. One of the sections was just random diary thoughts that had no particular order or theme.

However, I couldn't stop reading this book. At first, I didn't know if I could continue on, but I got used to it and I was enthralled. I wanted to know more about the farm. I was engrossed in the story of the daily life events that happened to her in Kenya. I couldn't get enough. And the last two long chapters took forever for her to end (going back home after a failed farm). I was kind of happy about it.

I just wished Isak could focus more. I mean there is literally only one chapter where she briefly mentions her husband. I mean she was in Africa because of him, I felt like there could have been more about him. Oh well. I don't think I would read this book again, but I definitely ended up enjoying. The movie was awful though.