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Loading... The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bearsby Dinaw Mengestu
  
None No current Talk conversations about this book. It was ok-ish. The middle got a little swampy.  reg_lt | Feb 7, 2020 |  Two reasons why I chose to read this book: 1) It was Seattle Reads' 2008 pick, and 2) a good percentage of my ESL students are from Ethiopia like the main character of the book. Negative reviews from other Goodreads folks claim that 'nothing happens' and that the characters aren't developed. I disagree. Sure, nobody dies or gets married or gets bitten by a vampire; there's neither a tragic ending nor a perfectly happy, resolved one. Plenty of things happen, however small to the reader, to Sepha. He hopes for the attention of a woman, he befriends her daughter, he revisits his guilt of leaving his family/country, he is in perpetual danger of losing his store. It is a book of being in between, in transition. Between countries, homes. Between the bad years and the good years. Meeting people that you hope will stick around but they don't because they were only meant to be in your life for a short time. The book is a glimpse into the experience of an Ethiopian immigrant and a glimpse into the life of an ordinary man who is still in search of his heaven. (  ) alyssajp | Jul 29, 2019 | I liked this story very, very much despite the fact that it felt deeply sad to me. It’s the story of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant who now lives in a small apartment on Logan Circle in Washington D.C. and there runs a small convenience store. His new neighbor is Judith, a white woman, mother of Naomi, her biracial daughter. The mom moves into a newly restored house also on Logan Circle. A friendship of sorts develops between Sepha and Naomi because she loves to visit his store and read with him. I found this author’s writing deeply moving and very sensitively written. I fell in love with its setting (warts and all, due to gentrification) because I really love living in the Washington, DC. area, and find it fun to read about places I know fairly well. In one part of the story, the author describes the feeling of powerlessness and sadness when a familiar old neighborhood undergoes sudden, drastic change due to needs of the more affluent members of the community. I empathize with his concerns. While reading this book, I felt the need to learn more about Ethiopian immigrant communities in the United States. I discovered that the largest Ethiopian community in the United States is located in my own county within Maryland. I love when fiction has this impact on me! (  ) SqueakyChu | Jan 24, 2019 | I like Dinaw Mengistu’s writing style but this one was a bit pedantic and slow. 6 months after reading this one was pretty forgettable. (  ) kate_r_s | Oct 29, 2018 | Bittersweet.. Immigrants amid the gentrification in Washington, DC ( ) mstruck | Apr 19, 2018 | no reviews | add a review
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