Nana's review
Graceland by Chris Abani
usually, first novels are these explosive things and you can picture the author all spent and wasted by the end of it. which isn't to say the writing of this book wasn't a laborious effort for abani; however, i didn't get that "giving it your all" sense. the writing is decent, but i wasn't blown over. too many things happen in too short a space (i know, everyone who is writing/has written a novel will probably murder me for saying that). in the end, i appreciated it, but not as much as i wanted to. i hope his second book is better.
