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What Members Thought

A woman searches for and finds the child taken from her at birth. Issues raised in this book have stayed in my mind…the lengths a mother will go to to be with her child, both the kindness shown to and the exploitation of people in need.
The construction of the book worked well. The story is told first by the various people the woman encounters on her journey from Tunisia to Berlin, then the woman gives her version of events, and finally the adoptive mother of the child tells her thoughts.
The construction of the book worked well. The story is told first by the various people the woman encounters on her journey from Tunisia to Berlin, then the woman gives her version of events, and finally the adoptive mother of the child tells her thoughts.

A smartly constructed book telling the story of an African woman's desperate trip to Europe to try to find her son from multiple perspectives. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of the book, but once I gave it a good long burst of reading it clicked with me. The book does hold you at arm's length a bit because of its approach, but I think the trade-off of a bit less emotional engagement for something narratively interesting was worth it.
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This is the story about a young African woman who leaves her job and home in Tunisia to try to find her son in Germany after he was taken from her. It is the story of how she got to Germany told by those she met along the way, and how she found her son and paid his father so she could spend time with him. I did not like the style of writing, and that it took so long for us to learn about the main character, we do even know her name, so it made it really hard to connect with her.

Sep 01, 2010
Lauren
marked it as tbr-longlist

Aug 29, 2011
Clare
marked it as one-day

Jul 17, 2012
Renee
marked it as to-read

