This one is going to be a little bit shorter and not as indepth as the last because I accidently returned two of the books I was supposed to review....OOPS!
So to start off I read The Godmother by Carrie Adams. The main character telling the story is named Tessa King, haha, but she couldn't be any less like me. She is 35, single, and British. She is also the Godmother to all of her friend's kids, four total. But she has no kids. I didn't really know how to get into this book at first because I felt so far removed from the situation. I'm almost 20 years old, in a relationship with no plans of kids on the way. But yes, my best friend does happen to have a little girl and I'm kind of sort of like a Godmother figure in her life when I can be. But thats it. Plus Tessa is a lawyer and has just gotten back from India on a Yoga retreat. I've never done that! So it was difficult. Since it was an easy read though I pushed on through it and by the time I was half way through it I'd been sucked in. Tessa is a good person but struggles with her emotions and statements a lot like I do,and she's an extremely devoted friend like I am as well. Her friends are all wonderful people and I learned to love them as much as character Tessa does. It's a book that I plan on reading again when I'm about 10-15 years older because I feel like I'll appreciate it even more by then. I do recommend it to anyone, female, who wants to try something a little beyond their years [content wise] and just needs to get a way to something different than their lives. Am I going to add it to my "To Buy" list though? No.
I then tried to read A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe and I had to stop after just one chapter. I very raretly do that with any book. It's probably been over 10 years since I've put a book down and stopped reading it. But it was HARD. I read Things Fall Apart by the same author about 2 years ago in AP Lit and really enjoyed it. But this one was much much harder to read. I tried looking up reading guides/cliff notes to try and get through it but everything I found you had to pay for. So I gave up. I'm hoping that its a book that pops up again in a class I take or a book club I may join. That way I can read it with some help......
The next book I read was The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams. Apparently Alexander the Great's tomb has never actually been found so the Adams wrote his book off of this concept. About 6+ different characters are interwoven in this story about finding his tomb. I loved the idea and thought it would turn out being really good and twisty turny like Dan Brown's books but I was so wrong. He spent maybe a page and a half on each point of view, per character, and it was awul. I never really got to know any of the characters personalities so I didn't really get drawn in. I just really wanted to know how they'd find the tomb, and if anyone would die... The ending was also really bad. It was short and ended the story but if he'd taken at least 100 more pages I think it would have been a lot better. His writing isn't bad which is why I could deal with it, it was just the whole jumping around and what not that I didn't enjoy. I don't recommend this book and won't be buying it ever.
I just finished, today, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. I really really enjoyed this one. It's about a 15 year old Nigerian girl, Kambili, who's father is a rich business man and devote Catholic. They have a beautiful house and attend a very nice missionary school. But everything is not so wonderul in their family life. Her Papa [father] is not this wonderful man that the village or their priest, Father Benedict, thinks he is. One thing that I really loved about this book is the writing itself. "She spoke the way a bird eats, in small amounts" is a good example. Wonderful descriptions throughout. Like with The Romance Reader from my last blog, I feel like I learned a lot about Nigerian culture. There are the Catholics and then there are the "traditionalists" or the "heathens" as Kambili's papa calls them. The ones that would not convert and still pray to the gods and what not. Kamili's Papa-Nnukwu [grandfather] is one of these people. Neither Kambili, or Jaja her older brother, are allowed to have anything to do with him except for 15 minutes every Christmas.
At one point Papa-Nnukwu is talking about when the missionaries [white] first came to his part of Nigeria. He says, "One day I said to them, Where is this god you worship? They said he was like Chukwu, that he was in the sky. I asked then, Who is the person that was killed, the person who hangs on the wood outside the mission? They said he was the son, but that the son and the father are equal. It was then that I knew that the white man was mad. The father and the son are equal? Tufia! Do you not see? That is why Eugene (his son) can disregard me, because he thinks we are equal."
Another part that stuck with me was near the end when Jaja is talking to Kambili. Kambili has just said, "God knows best...God works in mysterious ways." and her replies, " Of course God does. Look what he did to his faithful servant Job, even to His own son. But have you ever wondered why? Why did He have to murder his own son so we would be saved? Why didn't He just go ahead and save us?"
The final part I will quote comes from her Aunt who has written Kambili from America and is discussing the way people talk about Nigeria/Africa. "There are people who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once."
It's poignant statements like these, that the characters make, that make it such a wonderful read. You are able to catch a feel for the culture in Nigeria and at the same time feel like you are very much the same as these people. That really, they are no different than us, than Americnas. I definitely suggest this book and am adding it to my "To Buy" list.
So to start off I read The Godmother by Carrie Adams. The main character telling the story is named Tessa King, haha, but she couldn't be any less like me. She is 35, single, and British. She is also the Godmother to all of her friend's kids, four total. But she has no kids. I didn't really know how to get into this book at first because I felt so far removed from the situation. I'm almost 20 years old, in a relationship with no plans of kids on the way. But yes, my best friend does happen to have a little girl and I'm kind of sort of like a Godmother figure in her life when I can be. But thats it. Plus Tessa is a lawyer and has just gotten back from India on a Yoga retreat. I've never done that! So it was difficult. Since it was an easy read though I pushed on through it and by the time I was half way through it I'd been sucked in. Tessa is a good person but struggles with her emotions and statements a lot like I do,and she's an extremely devoted friend like I am as well. Her friends are all wonderful people and I learned to love them as much as character Tessa does. It's a book that I plan on reading again when I'm about 10-15 years older because I feel like I'll appreciate it even more by then. I do recommend it to anyone, female, who wants to try something a little beyond their years [content wise] and just needs to get a way to something different than their lives. Am I going to add it to my "To Buy" list though? No.
I then tried to read A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe and I had to stop after just one chapter. I very raretly do that with any book. It's probably been over 10 years since I've put a book down and stopped reading it. But it was HARD. I read Things Fall Apart by the same author about 2 years ago in AP Lit and really enjoyed it. But this one was much much harder to read. I tried looking up reading guides/cliff notes to try and get through it but everything I found you had to pay for. So I gave up. I'm hoping that its a book that pops up again in a class I take or a book club I may join. That way I can read it with some help......
The next book I read was The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams. Apparently Alexander the Great's tomb has never actually been found so the Adams wrote his book off of this concept. About 6+ different characters are interwoven in this story about finding his tomb. I loved the idea and thought it would turn out being really good and twisty turny like Dan Brown's books but I was so wrong. He spent maybe a page and a half on each point of view, per character, and it was awul. I never really got to know any of the characters personalities so I didn't really get drawn in. I just really wanted to know how they'd find the tomb, and if anyone would die... The ending was also really bad. It was short and ended the story but if he'd taken at least 100 more pages I think it would have been a lot better. His writing isn't bad which is why I could deal with it, it was just the whole jumping around and what not that I didn't enjoy. I don't recommend this book and won't be buying it ever.
I just finished, today, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. I really really enjoyed this one. It's about a 15 year old Nigerian girl, Kambili, who's father is a rich business man and devote Catholic. They have a beautiful house and attend a very nice missionary school. But everything is not so wonderul in their family life. Her Papa [father] is not this wonderful man that the village or their priest, Father Benedict, thinks he is. One thing that I really loved about this book is the writing itself. "She spoke the way a bird eats, in small amounts" is a good example. Wonderful descriptions throughout. Like with The Romance Reader from my last blog, I feel like I learned a lot about Nigerian culture. There are the Catholics and then there are the "traditionalists" or the "heathens" as Kambili's papa calls them. The ones that would not convert and still pray to the gods and what not. Kamili's Papa-Nnukwu [grandfather] is one of these people. Neither Kambili, or Jaja her older brother, are allowed to have anything to do with him except for 15 minutes every Christmas.
At one point Papa-Nnukwu is talking about when the missionaries [white] first came to his part of Nigeria. He says, "One day I said to them, Where is this god you worship? They said he was like Chukwu, that he was in the sky. I asked then, Who is the person that was killed, the person who hangs on the wood outside the mission? They said he was the son, but that the son and the father are equal. It was then that I knew that the white man was mad. The father and the son are equal? Tufia! Do you not see? That is why Eugene (his son) can disregard me, because he thinks we are equal."
Another part that stuck with me was near the end when Jaja is talking to Kambili. Kambili has just said, "God knows best...God works in mysterious ways." and her replies, " Of course God does. Look what he did to his faithful servant Job, even to His own son. But have you ever wondered why? Why did He have to murder his own son so we would be saved? Why didn't He just go ahead and save us?"
The final part I will quote comes from her Aunt who has written Kambili from America and is discussing the way people talk about Nigeria/Africa. "There are people who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once."
It's poignant statements like these, that the characters make, that make it such a wonderful read. You are able to catch a feel for the culture in Nigeria and at the same time feel like you are very much the same as these people. That really, they are no different than us, than Americnas. I definitely suggest this book and am adding it to my "To Buy" list.