In June we discussed All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu. Six of us were at the meeting and ratings for the book ranged from 2.0 to 3.25 with an average of 2.5. In reading the reviews and great commentary of the book we expected it to be much better than it was.
"All Our Names narrates the story of a young black man who comes of age in post-colonial Africa and the young white woman who meets and falls in love with him in a small Midwest town." Isaac and Helen alternate narrating the chapters and Isaac's story begins when he leaves his home in Ethiopia to attend college in Uganda in the early 1970's. He talks about having 13 names, one from each generation, and was the first from his village to reach that milestone. Helen is a social worker assigned to Isaac's case when he arrives as a foreign exchange student. Isaac's story focuses on the relationship he has with his friend "the real Isaac" in Uganda, while Helen's story is supposed to be about their sweeping love story. As a group, we felt more connected to Isaac's story of the Uganda conflict than to Helen's tale of their love story. None of us felt the love story and thought it was mostly just about sex.
The very end of the book tells of them going on a road trip to Chicago which is really the first time any of us felt emotion/love between the 2 of them. We wished there would have been more of that.
Some of our comments about the book were: it was vague, too many unanswered questions, wanted a better relationship between the characters, characters could have been better developed, reading the book felt like a dream and it was hard to recall details, felt disconnected, it was a quick read and didn't love or hate it, low level of engagement. Based on what we read about the author's goals for this novel we felt he did not accomplish what he set out to do.
Ok... on to our happy hour!
We are set for next Thursday the 16th at 5:00 at my house. Please let everyone know what you will be bringing. I will have drinks! Also we will be discussing Call the Midwife.
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