I really wanted to like this book. Apparently a lot of people think it's awesome, and it had some really good turns of phrase, such as "Her frizzy hair, drenched in sweat, looks like the vomit of a disemboweled armchair." But I simply couldn't figure out what was going on half the time. I was in a fog from start to finish.

There are two protagonists, both of them locked in a godforsaken West African prison. One, a teenage girl, is dying (of what cause, it doesn't say) and tells her life story to the other, a French woman who's in for speaking against the government. It's a bleak story full of violence and rape and deprivation. One gruesome scene after another.

I think I'm just not the kind of person for this kind of book. So far I've liked almost none of the African fiction I've read. ( )