Lori M. (lormac) reviewed on 5/7/2011 + 120 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

After all the hoopla, I cannot say I was impressed with this book. My disbelief factor rose and rose and rose as I read this book. I found that the author's plotting - here is an African girl in an immigrant detention center but we don't know how she got there; here is a privileged English woman who is unhappy with her life who is somehow linked to the African girl but we don't know how; a journalist kills himself but we don't know why; then we find out how they are linked but we still don't get the whole story - the author slowly peels away another layer every so often, but this slow-reveal technique did not impress me - it just annoyed me. Give me the whole story and let me process it as a reader. Don't be so cutesy about it. I could understand if this slow-reveal made me change my opinion of the characters as the reveal progressed, but it didn't. I disliked Sarah at the beginnning and I was only slightly more fond of her by the end; I loved Little Bee immediately and nothing that was revealed changed my feelings for her; Lawrence was a shit from the minute he appeared on the page and nothing that happened made me like him, even a little; and Andrew was pathetic throughout and his position as victim never changed as the facts were revealed. So if an auther is not trying to change the reader's opinion of the character over time, why the slow-reveal of the facts?

SPOILER ALERT: I found the last several chapters to be ridiculous. I could not accept anything that was happening: (1) The British government holds Little Bee for two years in an immigrant detention center, but sends her back to Nigeria within a week after the South Bank outing incident. (2) Sarah finds her "center" as a mother after the South Bank outing incident, but then brings Charlie with her to Africa, putting him in danger while she undertakes risky research for a political expose. (3) Little Bee comments on how she suddenly feels so comfortable on the South Bank as she is surrounded by all races and nationalities so that she does not stick out as an outsider, but then after they find Charlie, when she could have just blended in at the outskirts of the crowd, she seems to be randomly picked up by policeman. This was the most unbelievable moment in a book full of unbelievable moments. (4) Of all the evil things that the Nigerian soldiers could choose to do, including arresting Sarah which seems the most obvious, shooting at a four-yeart-old English child on a public beach is the thing that they decide to do. Why do they care so much about arresting Little Bee? Isn't Sarah the obvious troublemaker? I suppose it just makes for a better ending - but not a believable ending.

Finally - in the book club extras at the back of my edition, there is a discussion by the author of the quote that opens the novel, which contains an actual typo found in the immigrant textbook given by the UK to immigrants studying for the citizenship test. He says, "...if a refugee is prepared to walk away from a regime that has imprisoned and tortured her...we should at least be prepared to have that textbook professionally copyedited." What?!! Does Mr. Cleave really think that an individual who has escaped death and flees to a country where they do not face torture and death would actually care if the textbook they are given to study from has typos? I could understand Sarah suffering from this type of skewed priorities, but the author?!!! Hmmmmmmm.

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