Coolsparks

Stunning surprise of loveliness

Revisado: 08-13-22

I started this book because I liked the cover art; it is bright
and joyful
and bursting with life.

And so is the story within.

As the story unfolded, I realized that a Nigerian girls’ boarding school was coming to life in my mind, as were the students.

I felt a tug of familiarity, an echo of my life fifty years ago in New England when a girls’ boarding school was my home.

Some of us start as pipsqueaks who are awed by the power wielded by our elders.

And then our awed wonder begins to get tarnished as we see little shortcuts taken here, little prevarications made there, the administration looking the other way here, everybody over there seeming heart-blind to unkindness and casual cruelty.


So I felt the story’s plot most plausible, and the situations that transition the story from one trajectory to another were believable in how they totter…
…and topple
…and SHIFT with uncanny grace to pave a road toward hope and fairness.

We all struggle with the mix of marbles that makes us human:
strengths, weaknesses, challenges, gifts.
With that in mind, I treasure the rich array of character traits that are so effortlessly woven into each person in the story.
Echoes of real life come back to me without turning familiar people into caricatures. And when a story can crisp up the recognition of forces at work in our daily lives,
…we call it art.



Now to your question-prompts:

1) WHAT I LIKED/
DISLIKED?

LIKE:

Above I speak of how I cherish the relatability of teen-year struggles, as they are previews of what we see in each decade of life.

DISLIKE:

ONE WISH:
If only there were a little vocabulary list of the fruits mentioned…and of the varieties of cloth referred to; I would so LOVE to be able to search out a picture of them, learn the stories and histories attached to them.
SO….
It. Would. Be. Spectacularly. FUN!!! to learn more about various items and culture-ways spoken of in the experience of this story.
AND…
Is there some way you could offer wee Easter-egg nuggets (links?) that a curious mind could follow in hope of looking further into this vibrant society?

SECOND WISH:
When I READ a book, I get to see the spelling.

With an audiobook, however, unless the introductory section reveals the spelling of characters’ names, I find it tricky to grasp some names. This is exponentially more difficult when the names of characters are absolutely new to me and arise from the sound-clusters of a whole different language; my ear is not quick to not recognize each one.
Nor can they be easily distinguished from each other.

Unless unusual names are VASTLY different from each other, distinguishing them as events unfold can be tricky.
(Might you offer a Cast of Characters list?)

But this is a minor detail that will become less an issue each successive time I listen to it.
This book is delightful and thought-provoking; it has been well-worth these rare moments of my being alive this day.


2)
RECOMMENDED AUDIENCE:
Human….
Anyone
who IS a teen…
who HAS EVER BEEN a teen,
who is within five years of BECOMING
a teen…

3)
WHY THIS RATING:

Truth in the story’s fabric;
Truth in the beautifully-made garment cut
from that fabric;
Truth in the spirit animating those garments
with life.

Created here is
A lovely shadow-pageant of dark and light.
Thought-provoking.
Art.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña