My friend Brian recommended and lent this book to me, and I'm so glad he did! I don't want to tell you too much about the actual story (because the back of the book actually instructs me not to...seriously, it says "Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens. The magic is in how the story unfolds."). I can tell you the basics though: this is a story told from two different perspectives, one teenage refugee girl from Nigeria, and a 30-something British women's magazine editor. Their lives have already been intertwined before this novel even begins, and continues to be as the story progresses. Cleave does an excellent job writing through both women's voices, a fairly amazing feat in my eyes considering how different their respective worlds are. Both have seen and felt tragedies, some almost unspeakable, and while it has the potential to be a very sad book, Cleave has some humorous moments of relief provided by the language barrier of the Queen's English and one very hyper child who thinks he is Batman. This book explore several topics that I either know very little about, or rarely read books about, so it was a nice departure for me. All in all, a good read!
Anyone else read this one?
No but I wanna!
ReplyDeleteShould I add it to my list?
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