How Beautiful We Were
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
A PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST 'Sweeping and quietly devastating' New York Times 'A David and Goliath story for our times' O, the Oprah Magazine Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, this is the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations are made – and broken. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. But it will come at a steep price – one which generation after generation will have to pay. How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.
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The audiobook was excellent, as the different readers made sense when the narrators shifted, and heightened my appreciation for Mbue's structure that I don't think I would have liked if reading it on the page. This is a departure from Behold the Dreamers and shows real range. I prefer a more linear story, but in audio form I liked hearing more details from each narrator and didn't mind that that took away from the pacing and meandered around in time. The subject is really emotional but I didn't feel emotionally connected, even by the tragedies building to the end, and part of that is the structure forced the reader to be at a remove. I think I appreciated this book more than I enjoyed it, but I'll definitely continue to read what Mbue publishes.
