Medium – Book
About the Book – After a murderous attack on their village, twins Husseina and Hassana are separated. They end up in completely different places – the Gold Coast of Africa and in Brazil, and they come to make new friends and forge new lives away from the shadows of each other and their former lives. However, they remain connected through shared dreams of the deep blue water. Although many years pass, in their own ways, they hunt for each other, feeling that their fates are drawing them back together again.
My Rating – 2.5/5
My Thoughts – This was one of those books that I really wanted to like. It was one that I got from the ‘Book Box Club’ and generally (although with some exceptions), I find that their books are ones that I enjoy and get through quite easily. However, I did find this book a bit of a slog. There were several things I liked about it. I’ve never read a book set at this time in Africa/Brazil that is focussed on women of colour. I really liked that and liked the way that the setting and characters were drawn – especially the ‘background’ characters, who were very life-like and intriguing. The settings really made you feel that you were in the place, with beautiful description and a real feeling of the historical era. I also really appreciated that this was a book written by a woman of colour – I don’t read enough of those, and would like to expand this.
But, I did find this a hard book to read. It was only 250 pages long, but took AGES. It falls into the ‘drama’ genre, I would say, which is not one I would usually read. It was quite slow-moving, and there wasn’t really much action until the last few pages of the book. I know that this is very much my opinion but this part of it wasn’t really to my taste. I found the main characters quite difficult to get behind – the one who went to Brazil (Vitoria/Husseina) was slightly more to my taste than Hassana. I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t enjoy the characters – it’s a difficult one to put into words. In short – it’s not a book I would read again, but I don’t think my time was entirely wasted by reading it (does that make sense?)
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