Harare Review of Books

264 pages.

First published Aug 9, 2022 (paperback), Oct. 12, 2023 (audiobook) (Bon Esprit Books)

Fiction.

This is a delightful and, as the internet might say, “wholesome” book, that’s easy to read, and that comes with a lovely ending. It opens with a flashback scene where a baby is found on a bridge, and then we meet Jude, who was adopted by a couple in Clarkesville, Washington, in the US. We also meet Qadir, a Somali living in Nairobi, Kenya. We follow their lives as they move into adulthood, college, and work, and then Jude goes to Kenya on an adventure, and he meets Qadir.

The writing is really wonderful, reminiscent of writing in the books I read as a child, with a certain, slightly formal, cadence and style. All of the characters are great, even the villains, and this may be the flaw in the book: it is so light and wholesome that difficult subjects–for example, racism in the US, and the situation of Somali people in Kenya–lack an emotional punch. Still, the book does not pretend to be anything that it isn’t, and a little light reading is sometimes needed.

Swahili and Somali dialogue are translated sentence by sentence, which disturbs the flow of the story to some degree, but is nice if you want to pick up a bit of language. I listened to the audiobook and followed along in the DRC, which is a nice new way I’ve found to speed-read (and I recommend it!); the audiobook is very ably narrated by Lee Goettl.

Thank you to Bon Esprit Books and to NetGalley for access.

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