Susan Minot

Thirty Girls by Susan Minot is recommended.

By alternating between the narrative voice of Jane Wood and Esther Akello, Susan Minot creates a sharp juxtaposition of emotions in Thirty Girls, a fictionalized real life tragedy. Jane is an American journalist who has traveled to Nairobi and is planning to travel to Uganda in order to interview the girls who have escaped from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA ) led by the infamous Joseph Kony. Esther was one of the 30 Ugandan girls kept by the LRA show more from their convent school in 1996. This was after 100 girls were released to a nun from the school. While Esther is simply trying to recover from her years of rape and abuse, Jane hangs out with a privileged group of cohorts who decide to accompany her to Uganda.

Minot uses great discernment in capturing the subtle nuances of Esther's psychological as well as physical recovery. Esther's story is difficult to read, heart breaking. She is struggling to simply survive day by day, hoping to recover some normalcy but plagued by memories and thoughts of her detestable captivity. Her story is the heart and soul of the book - and it is tragic.

My problem with Thirty Girls is Jane. For me she detracts from the real story. The horrific experiences Esther endured make Jane look shallow, narcissistic, and rather aimless. While Jane is in Africa to interview the recovering abducted girls, she seems less interested in Esther's story than in her own silly love affair with a younger man. Jane is just annoying as heck.

Thirty Girls is a beautifully written novel, and Esther's story will touch your life, but I wish Jane had not been inserted into her story. It lessened the impact of the narrative for me.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday via Edelweiss for review purposes. show less

Told in differing voices and perspectives, Thirty Girls is the fictionalized account of a group of girls kidnapped from their school by a Boko Haran-type group. The girls are matched to soldiers and forced to live with the wandering group of terrorists as they gain territory. That part of the story is vivid, heart-breaking, and impossible to put down. The intervening chapters, which take up the majority of the book, is told from the viewpoint of an American journalist who travels to Kenya show more and then to Uganda to interview some of the girls who have escaped from the group. In contrast, this journalist and her friends that travel with her are quite a shallow and uninteresting lot. The contrast is telling and one is not left rooting for the westerners. show less

Ann Lord is lying in “the last room,” dying of cancer. As she slips into and out of lucidity, she remembers her life, her three marriages, the high and low points, and in particular one weekend and one very special relationship.

“She woke and thought of what was left. She had always believed in the accepted wisdom that what was important would endure and in the end survive and what mattered would last and be recognized and saved. But she saw now that was not true.”

Susan Minot manages show more to convey Ann's state of mind convincingly and lyrically:

“She grew sensitive to the different shades of white on the ceiling. Her sense was not always right. The position of her arm had something to do with inviting people to dinner. She needed to move the pillow so a boat could dock there. She knew it wasn't logical and wondered if the drugs were obscuring things then it seemed as if the drugs were making it easier to read the true meaning.”

One tiny quibble is that the style is at times almost self-consciously, ostentatiously lyrical. Nevertheless, it never interferes with and almost always enhances the story, which is heartbreaking and beautiful. show less

Monkeys by Susan Minot is a slim, melancholic novel about the Vincent family - the parents (Augustus and Rosie), and their seven children, Caitlyn, Sophie, Delilah, Gus, Sherman, Chicky, and Miranda. Each chapter is a snapshot of their day-to-day lives. These snapshots are mostly quotidian and revolve around the seven siblings and their extended family. I was reminded of other novels such as The Cherry Robbers, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and even Franny and Zooey, and how families interact show more with one another and seem to cultivate a familial/emotional argot that seems to develop in larger families. Their lives are insular and each character knows their place. The writing is quiet but descriptive. A good book to read on a rainy day. show less