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A review by barefootmegz
The 30th Candle by Angela Makholwa
3.0
The 30th Candle was written fourteen years ago… and it shows.
A novel about four women - best friends - on the cusp of their thirtieth birthdays, presents an opportunity for identity and commiseration. Indeed, these four women - intelligent, witty young women of colour - present a spectrum of personalities that may well have been the reader’s good friends.
After a slow start, The 30th Candle picks up speed and, despite the relentless obsessions with brand names and appearances, becomes a very readable page turner. And yet, it never feels quite like the South Africa I know - or the peers I know.
Granted: not every novel about modern women of colour must be a social commentary, but if presented as a contemporary novel (“updated” as per the author’s note), it is perhaps not unreasonable to hope for an “updated” social milieu.
I’ll always appreciate Makholwa as a South African author, but The 30th Candle is just not my favourite of her works.
Thank you to Negalley and Amazon UK for the eARC.
A novel about four women - best friends - on the cusp of their thirtieth birthdays, presents an opportunity for identity and commiseration. Indeed, these four women - intelligent, witty young women of colour - present a spectrum of personalities that may well have been the reader’s good friends.
After a slow start, The 30th Candle picks up speed and, despite the relentless obsessions with brand names and appearances, becomes a very readable page turner. And yet, it never feels quite like the South Africa I know - or the peers I know.
Spoiler
The maidens find their knights ( or escape the ogres), and in the end their divergent paths all becomes similar again. First, there is the harmful rhetoric of “oh dear all the good men are gay” - and then the gay man isn’t ACTUALLY gay, anyway. Not to mention the good-looking exchange student whose strong queer undercurrents are conveniently left to dissipate.Granted: not every novel about modern women of colour must be a social commentary, but if presented as a contemporary novel (“updated” as per the author’s note), it is perhaps not unreasonable to hope for an “updated” social milieu.
I’ll always appreciate Makholwa as a South African author, but The 30th Candle is just not my favourite of her works.
Thank you to Negalley and Amazon UK for the eARC.