Iman Verjee

This is a tough book to review, and in all honesty, I didn't know what I was getting into when I picked it up. Because while the inside cover-copy hints at what the book actually contains, it doesn't offer up the secret clearly enough that a reader will clearly get the warning. And, full disclosure, I'm not sure how to write this review without mostly giving away that secret, but it's worth noting that reading the book gives away the same secret within a chapter or so pretty clearly. I can only suspect they didn't put it more clearly in the blurb because they knew how many readers it would scare off if offered bluntly.

BUT...to not offer it does a disservice to readers. Because, gorgeous as the writing is, the topic this book confronts is difficult, and although Verjee's treatment of the story and characters is nuanced, smart, and beautifully accomplished, that doesn't change the facts that a content/trigger warning should absolutely have been placed in the book if they weren't going to make the blurb far more clear.

So, to be clear: what lies at the center of this book is akin to what you find in Lolita, but darker and built of a deeper, more intimate betrayal. It is also more explicit in terms of emotion and background, while being less explicit in terms of lust. Either way, however, this book isn't an easy read.

That said...Verjee's writing is utterly gorgeous, and the psychology is so carefully presented that even as I was disgusted by elements of the characters and story, I simply couldn't stop reading. I didn't necessarily *want* to keep reading, but I couldn't put the book down. The story has an inertia that builds more and more with each chapter if not each page, and the subtlety to the characters and various moments in the story bring it to life in a way that is not just utterly realistic and terrifying, but insidious--you realize exactly how what happens does happen, and how easily, which makes it all the more terrifying. You also understand why society's checks and balances don't stop it from happening, and just how the secret is kept. There's a terror to that, and to slowly the secrets unfold and build in the story, which makes it far more difficult to read even as it becomes easier to accept (which is, itself, part of the cumulative effect and also part of the horror).

It's difficult to read this book, and it's difficult to write about this book. I'm not surprised there are so few reviews. But if you love gorgeous writing, painfully realistic stories, and can deal with the subject matter, it is a book worth reading.

Recommended.… (plus d'informations)

I took me a very long time to get through this book. The writing is good, no problems there. In fact, for a random book off the library shelf based on the cover, it is remarkably good. It was hard to read because of the subject. Right away you know the book is working towards some terrible event and I did not want that event to come (turns out by the time it does come, it is so anticipated that it was not shocking not as graphic or long as I feared). There is another storyline about a corrupt cop that is so hopeless and disheartening that it is hard to read it. While the three main characters in the first storyline are all nice enough, I was not drawn to any of them, did not love anyone, was rather indifferent. Makes it easy to ignore a book in favour of other books or activities. I kept with it because I appreciate reading about a place I know very little about (Nairobi, Kenya) but I could not push this book on anyone else.… (plus d'informations)

After a traumatic event in her childhood, Leena left Kenya for university in England, and returning to her homeland is proving difficult, until an old friend resurfaces and shows her that to feel safe, one must not avoid dangers, but rather face fears head-on. This is a surprising, uncomfortable, and absolutely heartbreaking story about Kenya and its people. It presents an image of Nairobi that will make you feel as if you've been there yourself and all the characters, both the ones you love and those you hate, are urging you to care about them, which you will, deeply.… (plus d'informations)

The tension that exists between Africans who have been colonized and Southeast Asians who followed Europeans to those lands is rarely discussed; Iman Verjee's novel approaches the issue with touching openness and insight. By telling the story through several perspectives and masterful use of timing, she methodically unwraps the complex relationships among native Kenyans and Indian-Kenyans. The characters, especially Jeffery and Leena, are well-developed and give the reader a sense of the fine moral/social lines that communities draw between each other in order to bolster social stratification and mistaken ideas about supremacy. It was painful reading some of the stereotypes characters believed about others, but Verjee's novel offers an opportunity for dialogue about the nastiness that lies just below our people's facades.… (plus d'informations)