Berlie Doherty
Autore di Street Child
Sull'Autore
Serie
Opere di Berlie Doherty
Unsere Wiese 2 copie
Dear Nobody {play} 2 copie
IL RIFUGIO DI STELLA 1 copia
Mit Z fing alles an. 1 copia
Taube im Sommerlicht 1 copia
Branny was a Buffer Girl 1 copia
Opere correlate
War Girls: A Collection of First World War Stories Through the Eyes of Young Women (2014) — Collaboratore — 46 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1943-11-06
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- England
UK - Nazione (per mappa)
- UK
- Luogo di residenza
- Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK (birth)
Hoylake, Cheshire, UK - Istruzione
- Upton Hall Convent School
University of Durham (English, 1965)
University of Liverpool
University of Sheffield - Attività lavorative
- children's book author
poet
playwright
screenwriter - Premi e riconoscimenti
- Honorary Doctorate (University of Derby ∙ 2002)
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 76
- Opere correlate
- 7
- Utenti
- 2,368
- Popolarità
- #10,841
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 36
- ISBN
- 322
- Lingue
- 11
- Preferito da
- 1
Trigger warnings: Adoption, physical and terminal illness, death of parents and children from a contagion, grief and loss depiction
Score: Five points out of ten.
I own this book.
Where do I begin with this one? This book was one amongst many that was part of a library giveaway, and initially, it looked promising, until the low ratings and reviews lowered my expectations. I burned through other fictional works I owned, then I picked up this one and read it. When I finished it, it was a perfect example of how not to write a diverse story, since a white author wrote about a Black character. Abela is inaccurate at best, and blackface and cultural appropriation at worst.
It starts with the first two characters I see, Abela, the titular one who is Black, and Rosa who is biracial. Abela lived in an impoverished Tanzanian village infected with HIV/AIDS. Many people have died already, including some on the page, most likely for shock value and exaggerated and glorified trauma rather than anything meaningful. A few pages later, I see Rosa's perspective with her white mother, and that's where the flaws surface: the characters are hard to connect or relate with, even though Abela went through hardship to find a foster family after her biological parents succumbed to HIV/AIDS. The narrative is too disjointed because it switches between POVs every second chapter (sometimes that can work, but since Abela and Rosa are in different locations for most of it, that device ruins my enjoyment.)
Abela first resides at her social worker's house, but she is abusive so she has to move to another house with white people which didn't work out that well. This time the family is British Nigerian (wow, that's her third foster family) and again, subtle cultural differences prevent her from staying there. Rosa's mother considered adding an adoptive child to her family, much to Rosa's chagrin. Rosa once had an adoptive brother whose name I forgot, but his biological father wanted him back despite the circumstances, much to her shock. The conclusion occurred in the final pages where Abela stayed at Rosa and Rosa's mother's house, making that her fourth foster family, but that only felt like white saviourism at this point. Couldn't the author make it that Abela stayed at a British Tanzanian family's house instead? A Black author would've done a better job.… (altro)