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A review by ldv
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya
3.0
It feels disrespectful to "really like" a book that outlines a refugee's experience of wandering through seven different countries and struggling to fit in, find herself, to relate with her family. There's no happy ending, no full closure or moral here. It's a slightly detached but real account of the serious struggles a child has and always will have from her experiences of growing up with nothing, not even love or safety.
What I appreciate about the book is that it helped me see a glimpse of what it could be like to be a refugee. Obviously this is one story, told as an adult thinking back to a childhood, and told by someone who eventually "escaped" that world (though it never leaves her) and finds American success. Her pain is real, her relationships are all very hard. She does not know how to handle the brokenness. And who does? She does conclude with realizing it is essential to turn her experience into a narrative for herself. We need to see our lives as a story.
I appreciate the peek into a life that is not my own, an experience I cannot relate to. It leaves me feeling helpless, because I can do nothing to make any of it better. And if I don't recognize that I can't take Clemantine's story and apply it to other refugees, then I've not understood the book either. For example, Claire (her older sister and the only one who went through a similar experience , at least superficially) does not have the same story, the same way of dealing or living. Her mother has a totally different approach again. No one will deal with it the same way. We want simple answers and explanations, to draw lines from A to B. This book tells us that is not possible.
Not a simple read, (not graphic), not an easy situation to digest or accept. But a part of our world.
What I appreciate about the book is that it helped me see a glimpse of what it could be like to be a refugee. Obviously this is one story, told as an adult thinking back to a childhood, and told by someone who eventually "escaped" that world (though it never leaves her) and finds American success. Her pain is real, her relationships are all very hard. She does not know how to handle the brokenness. And who does? She does conclude with realizing it is essential to turn her experience into a narrative for herself. We need to see our lives as a story.
I appreciate the peek into a life that is not my own, an experience I cannot relate to. It leaves me feeling helpless, because I can do nothing to make any of it better. And if I don't recognize that I can't take Clemantine's story and apply it to other refugees, then I've not understood the book either. For example, Claire (her older sister and the only one who went through a similar experience , at least superficially) does not have the same story, the same way of dealing or living. Her mother has a totally different approach again. No one will deal with it the same way. We want simple answers and explanations, to draw lines from A to B. This book tells us that is not possible.
Not a simple read, (not graphic), not an easy situation to digest or accept. But a part of our world.