steph_davidson 's review for:

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

3.0

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#60. This is the second book I've read this year that uses a distinct, unusual dialect of its very young black female protagonist to narrate a sort of adventure story. The first was The Country of Ice Cream Star, by Sandra Newman, and I can't help but compare the two. It could very well be the fact that I listened to the audio version of Ice Cream Star, and it practically sang like opera, but this one just never got off the page and into my head in the same way. Is a 10 year-old narrator too unreliable, too oblivious to her surroundings to tell a good tale? Possibly. Or maybe it's just that this didn't have enough structure as a novel for me to keep up. The second half of the book felt more sure to me, once they'd immigrated to Detroit and Darling is finding her way in slightly more familiar surroundings, and we see her language and attitudes and understanding growing. But I struggled with the first half.