bennysbooks's Reviews (668)

Strong, evocative writing. Unfortunately, this style of storytelling doesn't seem to work for me (I also struggled to get into Maud Martha). I'm learning that character development is important to me and my experience of books. A story told in vignettes like this captures some beautiful moments, and has a magical, poetic quality to it, but leaves me overall feeling sort of exhausted from the whirlwind of experiences and people introduced.  

If the vignette style works for you, I think this will be a fantastic reading experience. If you, like me, prefer a deep dive into characters and situations, this likely won't work for you. 

My favourite part was Cisneros' essay introduction about writing. Based on that part, I do want to give more of her work a try. 

The first part of the book was a 4 star read for me. Halima's voice was engaging and funny, and I was swept up in her perspective. I couldn't put the book down. I loved her turns of phrases and gossiping, her bossiness, the way she reminisced. 

However, the second part of the book, where the perspective switched to Jacob Wainright, did not work for me personally (objectively it was equally fantastic). The character was educated and converted by white men, and his perspective was told through diary entries in the stodgy, dry style that was popular at the time. I totally understand the decision to write the character in this way, and I thought it was very smart, but it was also much more difficult to connect with. It's quite possible that my dislike stems from how well done it actually was, and my memories of having to read accounts such as those in University. 

And so, I can't possibly rate this book. I think it examined the topics of slavery and colonialism and religious conversion in interesting ways - having the people closest to Livingstone examine his life/beliefs allowed for nuance and complexity. The writing style showed how talented Gappah is as a writer. But I felt dread every time I tried to return to Jacob's diary entries, and so my experience reading the book was meh.