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A review by wretchedtheo
Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
While the message of Glory is a powerful one, in my opinion the execution falls short of it. It's a satire, but it fails by not actually being very funny, as well as sometimes referencing actual current events WAY too closely. I say reference but it doesn't reference, poke fun or critique these particular events so much as it simply unimaginatively retells them.
I got the feeling that the author really had a vision but tried much too hard to live up to the ambition of it. That's why I feel really bad critiquing this book. It genuinely tried to do something really important - but unfortunately it doesn't do satire well, and the style is given to fits of melodrama that made me roll my eyes and yanked me out of whatever emotion it was making me feel at the time.
I must say the dialogue can also get pretty confusing, as the characters will often use a bunch of words of (what I assume are) Shona and Ndebele, interspersed with the English? Now this would've been totally fine and even enjoyable as long as there was a glossary for these terms at the end of the book, or perhaps footnotes giving a definition or translation. But no, they were completely unexplained. I know that when reading literature about a country that isn't England or the USA the writer often needs to use words from their own language to describe aspects of their experience that may not be familiar to English-speaking readers. And I actually love when they do that, because I love learning about different cultures! But then either they must include a glossary or footnotes to explain these words or - if for whatever reason they do not wish to do so - for the sake of accessibility and a smooth, cohesive reading experience, they must at least use those terms sparingly enough that the reader can google them without exhausting themselves. And again, I know that not every book has to be easy to read. But if it's in English, the language used should at least be English. If there are non English terms used frequently throughout every dialogue those terms must be explained. I'm not deciphering the Rosetta stone here, I'm trying to read a novel from 2022 that I bought in the mall.
Also, the main character is a painfully obvious self insert, who in very incongruous y/n style gets a hot boyfriend and then immediately tragically and heroically dies. ...It was painful to read and I don't mean that in a good way.
The ending is also way too picture perfect - a grandiose fairytalesque "take that" moment that is very hard to believe.
Honestly, I tried really really hard to like this book because the story it tells is an important one - but I just really disliked the way it was told.
I got the feeling that the author really had a vision but tried much too hard to live up to the ambition of it. That's why I feel really bad critiquing this book. It genuinely tried to do something really important - but unfortunately it doesn't do satire well, and the style is given to fits of melodrama that made me roll my eyes and yanked me out of whatever emotion it was making me feel at the time.
I must say the dialogue can also get pretty confusing, as the characters will often use a bunch of words of (what I assume are) Shona and Ndebele, interspersed with the English? Now this would've been totally fine and even enjoyable as long as there was a glossary for these terms at the end of the book, or perhaps footnotes giving a definition or translation. But no, they were completely unexplained. I know that when reading literature about a country that isn't England or the USA the writer often needs to use words from their own language to describe aspects of their experience that may not be familiar to English-speaking readers. And I actually love when they do that, because I love learning about different cultures! But then either they must include a glossary or footnotes to explain these words or - if for whatever reason they do not wish to do so - for the sake of accessibility and a smooth, cohesive reading experience, they must at least use those terms sparingly enough that the reader can google them without exhausting themselves. And again, I know that not every book has to be easy to read. But if it's in English, the language used should at least be English. If there are non English terms used frequently throughout every dialogue those terms must be explained. I'm not deciphering the Rosetta stone here, I'm trying to read a novel from 2022 that I bought in the mall.
Also, the main character is a painfully obvious self insert, who in very incongruous y/n style gets a hot boyfriend and then immediately tragically and heroically dies. ...It was painful to read and I don't mean that in a good way.
The ending is also way too picture perfect - a grandiose fairytalesque "take that" moment that is very hard to believe.
Honestly, I tried really really hard to like this book because the story it tells is an important one - but I just really disliked the way it was told.