I usually love Barbara Kingsolver (although I think she's gotten a bit self-important, but that's another story), and of course I was looking forward to this book. I learned some about Africa, and I appreciated all her research.

But her characters were false. It was as though Kingsolver had decided what each character would represent and then forced each one to adhere to that representation. For example, one character is supposed to represent Americans in all their materialism and lack of understanding of other cultures, etc., but she makes this character not just blond but stupid and selfish. Now, I'm a brunette and all, but I would think that a more sophisticated (and supposedly feminist) writer could do more than that--it felt distinctly anti-female in her writing.

A little while after I'd read this book, I read an interview in which Kingsolver said she'd had to drag the characters from the mud, kicking and screaming. I think this is the main problem with this book--she didn't allow the characters to be themselves, to let *them* tell *her* who they were or what they were about. And it shows.

Also, the character of Adah seriously got on my last nerve. Don't even get me started.