Scan barcode
slyallm's review
2.0
Suffers from an excess of purpose. Granted, this is a story that needs to be told, but I’m not sure the novelization is necessary, or if it is, that a white guy in upstate New York is the person to do it. The entire structure seems soft: four meandering chapters told out of order by a narrator who never feels like more than a plot device. More obviously, inventing a white woman to go play witness to any post-Colonial African history seems like something the kids today might call problematic.
It will surprise exactly no one that I have a lot more complaints, but here is the biggest:
[minor spoiler]
Hannah’s three teenage Liberian sons, who up to that point have received a bare minimum of screen time, turn into terrifying child-soldier revolutionaries literally instantaneously. This is foretold, but not foreshadowed, if that makes sense. There isn’t even any sort of “should have seen that coming” assessment or explanation after the fact.
It will surprise exactly no one that I have a lot more complaints, but here is the biggest:
[minor spoiler]
Hannah’s three teenage Liberian sons, who up to that point have received a bare minimum of screen time, turn into terrifying child-soldier revolutionaries literally instantaneously. This is foretold, but not foreshadowed, if that makes sense. There isn’t even any sort of “should have seen that coming” assessment or explanation after the fact.
juliechristinejohnson's review
5.0
A brilliant and devastating work that shows through the fictional life of its female protagonist the real horrors of revolution and dictatorship in Liberia. Banks is a master writer who can reveal both the lovable and despicable in his characters and bring alive a piece of history through a story that is utterly believable.
alanfederman's review
3.0
Not his best book (see "Cloudsplitter" or "The Sweet Hereafter", but an engaging story of a 60s radical who ends up in the middle of the Liberian Civil War. Very good insight into modern African politics.
More...