book data
268 ratings, 4.50 average rating, 86 reviews
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published
September 4th 2007
by Bloomsbury USA
binding
Paperback, 480 pages
isbn
1596912936
(isbn13: 9781596912939)
description
Two-time National Book Award nominee Melissa Fay Greene puts a human face on the African AIDS crisis with this powerful story of one woman work...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 480)
Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
Anyone
This book really taught me a lot both intellectually and personally. It taught me that I haven't the first clue about poverty, the orphan crisis, about Africa and about AIDS. The author writes in a journalistic style about a current day Ethiopian woman who after the death of her husband and later her daughter decides to enter a life of hermitude. As she goes to say her good byes to a priest friend he asks her to take in a street girl and care for her. She reluctantly says yes. With in a few m...more
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Read in December, 2007
Wow.
This isn't just a really good book.
It's about 6 good books. More like 6 good, important books.
I love books that tell important, real stories from a personal point of view, particularly when they are so well-written that I can't put them down. There is No Me Without You is just such a book.
It's a biography of a complicated woman, Heregewoin Tefera, who has personally saved scores of Ethiopian orphans. Somewhe...more
This isn't just a really good book.
It's about 6 good books. More like 6 good, important books.
I love books that tell important, real stories from a personal point of view, particularly when they are so well-written that I can't put them down. There is No Me Without You is just such a book.
It's a biography of a complicated woman, Heregewoin Tefera, who has personally saved scores of Ethiopian orphans. Somewhe...more
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Read in December, 2006
This is the book that is causing me to rethink my life and try to decide if I am living a meaningful life. Am I doing enough good or should I sell my possessions, move to Africa or India and dedicate my life to something more useful than having a socially conscious job and owning a home.
Haregewoin Teferra was a middle class woman in Ethiopia, a professional woman with an husband who was a teacher and two beautiful and beloved daughters. After her husband passes away she raises her daughters ...more
Haregewoin Teferra was a middle class woman in Ethiopia, a professional woman with an husband who was a teacher and two beautiful and beloved daughters. After her husband passes away she raises her daughters ...more
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Read in June, 2007
This is an eye-opening book about AIDS orphans in Ethiopia. Melissa Fay Greene particularly focuses on the efforts of one woman who cares for those orphans. Haregewoin Teferra was one of the few refuges for AIDS orphans in the earlier days of the pandemic. Greene's tale doesn't seek to make Haregewoin into a saint, but shows her in all her courage and also her limited ability to handle the incredible task she takes on. When the Western world begins to laud Haregewoin for her deeds, Greene al...more
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Read in October, 2006
A moving, heartlifting account of how an Ethiopian woman handles AIDS, orphans and adoption.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in September, 2008
I'm exhausted from the long nights I've stayed up to read this book and also by bouts of crying (Emily, crying over a sad movie or book, now that's a surprise :). It was well worth it. It's really an inspirational tale.
When Heregewoin Teferra's daughter died, she thought her life was over. She intended to ask her priest to enter into a life of seclusion. Instead, he asked her take in an orphan girl. This was in 1999 and the Ethiopian AIDS crisis had reached epic proportions. Ethiopia h...more
When Heregewoin Teferra's daughter died, she thought her life was over. She intended to ask her priest to enter into a life of seclusion. Instead, he asked her take in an orphan girl. This was in 1999 and the Ethiopian AIDS crisis had reached epic proportions. Ethiopia h...more
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Read in June, 2008
This is a heart-wrenching and, at the same time, heart-warming true story of a 4'10" woman with the a huge heart - Hargeowain - a woman who cannot turn away the AIDS orphans who fill the streets of Addis Abba, the capital of Ethiopia.
Haregowain begins with several children and ends up with over 60. The children are divided between HIV positive and HIV negative, but no child is deprived of the love of their new "mother".
Since she cannot turn children away, the home grows an...more
Haregowain begins with several children and ends up with over 60. The children are divided between HIV positive and HIV negative, but no child is deprived of the love of their new "mother".
Since she cannot turn children away, the home grows an...more
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Read in March, 2007
Author Melissa Fay Greene, who is the adoptive mother of two Ethiopian children, relates the story of Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian mother who becomes the foster mother for a multitude of AIDS orphans during the height of the pandemic. Greene truthfully tells the tale without painting Teferra as a "modern day Mother Teresa," but rather as a very real and human woman who is asked by clerics to take in one abandoned orphan after another. A grieving mother whose adult daughter died fro...more
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This is a fantastic book that tells the story of every day heroes that change the lives of African orphans effected by the AIDS crisis. Greene does an excellent job of telling about the history of AIDS in 3rd world countries, and the political environment for children orphaned by AIDS. The book tells the story of a woman who risks everything to take in these orphans,when no one else in society would help. (There is a significant social stigma regarding children orphaned by AIDS). It's a story of...more
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Read in August, 2008
I did this book on audio at the gym, and it was a 14 hour long recording. I only listen to the audio while I do weights, and it took me a LONG time to actually get through the book. (I really think that says something about how little I've been working out lately!). I liked the way this book had information about the country and AIDS and the social economic structure of the region along with the story of Haregwon and her orphanage. The story of these kids is just heartbreaking. It definit...more
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Read in July, 2007
A thoroughly moving and informative book. it tells the true story of Haregowoin, an Ethiopian woman who, after losing her daughter to AIDS, finds new meaning in life by taking children who have been orphaned by AIDS into her care. She began with two children but soon cared for dozens. At first her actions were stigmatized in a society that was still largely uninformed about the way AIDS is transmitted, but as her family grew, so did international support for the AIDS crisis in Africa and people ...more
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Read in April, 2008
This is a truly amazing non-fiction book about the AIDS crisis in Ethiopia and one woman's effort to rescue orphans in that country. It also touched on the stories of a doctor and other orphan services, but the focus was Heregwoin Tefera, the woman mentioned above. She took in one orphan, then another, and finally ended up with 80 children in two different group homes, a couple hundred of which went on to be adopted by families in the United States and other western countries. A few of the ki...more
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Great read for getting a brief political/cultural history of Ethiopia as well as the history of HIV/AIDS. As a person who is adopting a child from Ethiopia, I found the personal stories of children and families moving and informative. This book definitely comes with a twist (a twist for the author as well apparently) in that the main protagonist is arrested (and later exonerated) for (essentially) neglecting her duties as head of the orphanage she started. Consequently, the book's narrative h...more
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This book is wonderful. Kelly told my husband to buy it for me for Christmas and it took me a long time to gear up to read it because I thought it would be sad. It is, but it's more hopeful than anything. I love books that remind me of the power of the human spirit and how one person can make a real difference. Part of the reason I love this non-fiction book is that the woman the title refers to is real - she is truly a hero but she is imperfect, selfish at times, makes mistakes. She goes a...more
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Read in February, 2008
I loved this book. Cried at various points throughout the book, usually because the AIDS devastation in Africa can so obviously be traced back to the World Health Organization and UNICEF using dirty needles for TB vaccinations. Isn't THAT ironic?! The AIDS orphans of Ethiopia was high, I knew, but nothing like I learned about in the book. At one point in the book, people told the heroine, "We didn't know..." I am so ashamed to say that I felt the same way, and I WORKED with AIDS f...more
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Story of how one African woman opened her home to children orphaned by AIDs. Alternates between her daily struggles to feed, clothe, shelter and educate kids, many sick themselves, with overviews of the magnitude of the problem.
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Read in July, 2008
This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in the AIDS epidemic in Ethiopia. It was a very well written story that follows the life of a woman in Addis Ababa who begins to take in AIDS orphans into her home. It is a very real account of her struggles and triumphs and shows the woman not as a saint, but as a human being with flaws who is just trying to do her best to help the children around her. In addition to following her story the author has chapter dedicated to the history of Ethiopia,...more
I picked this up on a sale table and had no idea what it was about when I popped it in the CD player. It's about the HIV crisis in Ethiopia and interweaves a personal story of a woman who loses her husband and soon after her daughter dies of AIDS. To overcome her grief she begins to take the dying and orphaned children into her own home. It is haunting... a tribute to the human spirit and a realization of how blessed we "haves" are as to opposed the multitudes of "have nots.&quo...more
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Admittedly, I was a captive audience for this book, having just gone through an Ethiopian adoption. The author tells the difficult story of a woman clearly in the middle-class in Ethiopia who, through a series of unfortunate circumstances, finds herself losing her job and taking in sick orphans. The woman loses her daughter to AIDS early on and takes the memory of her daughter with her throughout her journey of taking in orphans. Fay Green weaves in much relevant history of Ethiopia as the bo...more
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Read in March, 2008
This was an amazing book about an Ethiopian woman who is grieving the deaths of her husband and their daughter and decides to take in a couple teenagers from off the street. Her "mission" grows and she ends up with dozens of Ethiopian children of all ages, many who have been orphaned by AIDS.
This book was written by an American mother of two Ethiopian children. The author spent time with the Ethiopian woman, Haregewoin in her home, and bore witness to children grieving the loss...more
This book was written by an American mother of two Ethiopian children. The author spent time with the Ethiopian woman, Haregewoin in her home, and bore witness to children grieving the loss...more
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