What We Lose
Ratings11
Average rating4.1
15
Ratings11
Average rating4.1
A "novel about a young African-American woman coming of age... Raised in Pennsylvania, Zinzi Clemmons's heroine Thandi views the world of her mother's childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor - someone, or something, to love."--
Reviews with the most likes.
4.5 stars. This book wasn't what I expected but it was wonderful. At times I had to remind myself that it's a novel, not a memoir.
“An orphan was always a person without parents, without roots. I had one parent, and one was not none.”
This is a coming-of-age story about a young African-American woman, Thandi, who just lost her mother. The story covers more than just grief, bereavement and mourning. There is love, family dynamics, deep friendships and more. We see her struggle with her identity as a white-passing black girl in Pennsylvania and her efforts to stay connected with her roots in Johannesburg. I loved her friendship with Aminah and how it grew over the years. Thandi's relationship with her father was not the easiest and it is portrayed quite honestly. I liked it overall, highly recommend!
What We Lose reads like a collection of essays and vignettes, but together, they form a coherent story of someone who loses her home—only in this case, home is not a place, but a person. What does life look like when you become homeless (personless, motherless)? What do the fragments of this homeless life say about a life as a whole?
(originally published on inthemargins.ca)
