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Jan 09, 2017ArapahoeSteffen rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
This was a really fascinating read for me. Kingsolver's prose was complex and nuanced, thanks to her decision to narrate this book from the POV of four sisters and their mother - reluctant transients to the Belgian Congo in 1960, dragged there by their brutal and pious missionary father/husband. Here are some details that struck me. Plain green bushes bursting into riotous bloom and revealing themselves to be Poinsettias. The sky blue mouth of the Green Mamba. Congolese children with big bellies appeared that way because of malnutrition, their abdominal walls were undeveloped so their internal organs spilled into their bellies. Ruthless violence and politics in the pursuit of diamonds. Orleanna Price walking barefoot on the Georgia coast, gazing across the Atlantic, glaring at and longing for Africa both.