Y'all, I am so glad I stumbled into reading this book! The flap blurb positions this novel as a “mesmerizing, strikingly original coming-of-age story about a girl in Boston’s tight-knit Ethiopian community who falls under the spell of a charismatic hustler whose passionate philosophies about America will change both their lives forever” and then you start reading the book and it opens on an island and the narrator appears to be part of some sort of maybe cult and I was HERE FOR IT and immediately sucked in.⁣
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I loved the reading experience, between the snarky and sarcastic narrator and her steadily unfolding tale of falling in with the parking lot attendant Ayale, peppered with expert foreshadowing that had me guessing at the plotting taking place outside the scope of her naïve vision. On top of the edge-of-my-seat plot Tamirat lays down delicate threads exploring first and second generation American immigrant experience. And the ending! I'm desperate to discuss