Reviews with content warning for Rape - River Spirit

Dark & heavy story but beautifully written. I really got sucked in to their world & needed to know what happened next. A super complex story, not sure who to root for. But I’m glad I read it, it’s really my first time reading & learning much about Sudan’s history and I’m interested to learn more

Content Warnings

puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

beancity's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

tigger89's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I picked this book up because it was concerned with a period of history that, while I vaguely knew of, I had never studied or read about. From my limited knowledge, I believe the author did an excellent job of presenting the situation, explaining the hows and whys of the conflict and how different populations were affected as events played out. She certainly seems to have put in the effort to research the historical period, to the point of including some suggested sources in her acknowledgements.

Her choice to tell the story through many perspectives — Akuany, Yaseen, Yaseen's mother, a Mahdist revolutionary, a Scottish painter living in Khartoum during its siege, the British General Charles Gordon, and a few others as an epilogue — was a risky gamble that paid off. I found each voice to be unique, and the author's varied choice of person — first, third, or the one-off second — only enhanced the effect. I don't think the author could have adequately handled the portrayal of a family, both born and found, split across ideological lines without including so many different viewpoints. I also enjoyed the places, particularly the emotions they evoked in each character. Thinking back to my reading experience, I recall less the visuals of each location and more the way the characters reacted to them, particularly in the instances where characters perceived the same location differently.

Something that might be difficult for some readers is that the story isn't told entirely linearly. Sometimes one character will narrate a period of several months, and then we'll skip back and see the same period from different perspectives. Fortunately the dates covered are listed at the front of each chapter, but if you have a poor head for that or if you're listening to audio and can't easily flip back to check, you might find yourself temporally confused at a few points.

This book would be a solid 4 star rating if it wasn't for one plot element. Yes, I'm going to complain about the romance. I personally find "all grown up"-type romances, where an adult meets a child and then 10~ years later they get together, to be extremely squick. Even in the best of circumstances there's so much psychologically that's potentially messed up there, and this novel was not the best of circumstances! So, needless to say this romance did not do it for me(and for a very specific reason, this time), but YKINMK and maybe it'll do it for you.

Content Warnings

More...