yolie 's review for:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

3.5

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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A commanding book, and completely understandable why it is seen as a pioneer of the African literary scene.

Things Fall Apart - whether through inaction or due to the actions of others. This book albeit slow paced, introduces you to a Nigerian community not yet influenced by Christianity and this it follows strict traditional African spirituality and practises. It chronicles a society so rich in culture and identity and its eventual collapse due to the arrival of evangelists.

The book takes a really long time to hit its stride, and despite it being a short novel, it often feels longer than it was.

While newer fiction and writers can be praised for their (better) command of language and storytelling, Chinua Achebe achieved a feat no other African writer had done at the time and this book - in the context that it came out in - is remarkable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Colonisation

Moderate: Violence, Religious bigotry

Although slow paced, as the book goes on you begin to see why ‘Things Fall Apart’.