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

5.0

Above all I value Clemantine’s honesty throughout this book. She wasn’t afraid to show how angry she was at the world, at God, at the people around her and didn’t even try to make things out as if there was a happily ever after. I also gained good insight into the mind of someone who needed help but didn’t necessarily always want it and how patronising generous people can be. As someone who has a ‘save the world, help the people’ mantra going on, I was able to see that the world doesn’t always need more white people putting our noses into other peoples problems and suggesting if they just did it our way everything would be fine. After all, the author shows that the Rwandan genocide stemmed from the mess white people made during colonisation. The writing style was also very fluid but I suggest avoiding time gaps in reading because the story is not told in order and when I put the book down I sometimes got confused with where she was or had just been and what was happening now. Overall an excellent read.