Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were begins in the 1980’s, in a fictional village whose land has been invaded and occupied by an American oil company that plunders the areas resources, leaving the village and it’s children dying from toxic chemicals and poisoned water. 

Every eight weeks, the company representatives host a meeting in the village alongside the corrupt village leader, where concerns are voiced and promises for action are made, but the people have long since believing help will ever come. Their government is in cahoots with the oil company, leaving them to figure out for themselves how they will protect themselves and the future of their children. During the meeting, Konga, the madman of the village, stands and offers the villagers another avenue of action which will change the future of generations to come. 

This story explores the deep-rooted nuances of capitalism, neo-colonialism, power, and corruption, and “charts the ways repression, be it at the hands of a government or a corporation or a society, can turn the most basic human needs into radical and radicalizing acts”. 

Mbue has proved herself a skilled storyteller, whose prose is so vivid and will take you through an unbelievable range of emotion and into the thoughts of the characters. It left me feeling bittersweet, yet hopeful the fight would go on.

Happy reading!

Reviewed by Emma

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The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Committed is Viet Thanh Nguyen’s sequel to his 2015 novel The Sympathizer, which explores the ‘two minds’ of a sympathetic half-Vietnamese, half-French communist spy during the Vietnam war. 

We follow our nameless protagonist upon his arrival in Paris as a refugee, after having endured torturous re-education. Here, our narrator becomes involved with a criminal line of work, dealing drugs for a Chinese gangster as an attempt to escape his past and build a new future. 

Being of two minds, the Sympathizer finds himself both seduced and abhorred by the dominant French culture, on the one hand finding the capitalist and intellectual norm attractive, and on the other hand seeing France as a brutal colonizer, ignorant of its racial dominance and discrimination. 

As he grows increasingly plagued by his two minds, sympathizing with any and all sides of a dilemma, he becomes only more confused about who he is and what he believes – perhaps he believes only in nothing. The question he cannot seem to settle is: to what is he committed? 

This novel is full of philosophical reflections on Sartre, Voltaire, Césaire, which our protagonist uses to explore his internal conflicts, sometimes resulting in rants that last an entire page or two. This can at times feel a bit heavy, but it also works to carry the energy of desperation that the Sympathizer struggles to resolve. 

The novel comprehensively explores the contradictions of Western society, and particularly applies this in the context of refugee and immigrant experiences with discrimination and otherness. 

I found it to be a truly fascinating and complex novel and I couldn’t put it down. 

Happy reading!

Reviewed by Emma

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Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

I must say that I have found my new favorite book! Truly Devious is a mystery that switches between when Ellingham Academy first opened and the present day. We see a new mystery unfold in front of Stevie’s, the main character, eyes while she is already occupied with the mystery that is already connected with Ellingham Academy. 

Stevie is an anxious girl who loves true crime. She doesn’t just love it but she wants to pursue it as her career which is why Ellingham Academy is the perfect place for her. Ellingham Academy is a school for talented individuals to practice their talent hopefully being able to make that talent blossom into a promising career in that field. Stevie is particularly happy when she is accepted to the academy since she is hell-bent on solving the case surrounding Ellingham Academy. Little does she know when she steps onto the Ellingham Academy grounds that she will experience her own mystery during her time at Ellingham Academy.

The story does a great job of switching between the past and the present while still being able to follow along and not get confused. We get a great look into the characters and their personalities and can understand their decisions and choices.

The book is well written, has a good and exciting plot, and has interesting characters. Definitely a book I will re-read again and again.

The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson (Book 2)

Wow. Just wow. The second book might be better than the first. The Vanishing Stair dives deeper into the mysteries that surround Ellingham Academy, both past and present.

Stevie is back at Ellingham Academy and things are now more complicated than before. She is still absorbed by the Ellingham case from home but would do anything to get back to the academy and her friends. Which makes the surprise waiting for her at home after a certain school day very welcome, no matter how deceptive it is. Even though she wants to focus on the cases at hand she now also has to focus on something else, or someone else. David. The guy she kissed. The one person who will now unknowingly be keeping her at Ellingham Academy.

One thing I failed to mention in my review of the first book Truly Devious was the casual non-binary representation. By this, I mean that the non-binary character Vi just is. There’s no drama between them and other characters, they are referred to as the proper pronouns, and they have a healthy romantic relationship with another character who identifies as female. Being part of the LGBTQ+ community myself, seeing this type of representation without all the drama and trauma, even though that also has its place, was a breath of fresh air. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and loved all the twists and turns and I believe it was a very well-done sequel. 

Reviewed by Daniela Sarah Gram

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A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

At the beginning of the pandemic, whilst people were trying to make their sourdoughs whilst knitting a sweater and trying to find space in the cupboard for their excess toilet paper, Frederik Cilius Jørgensen encouraged people to play chess. To motivate them to dive into the game that has been unchanged for literally centuries, he promoted the 1943 novel by Austrian author Stefan Zweig. Jørgensen’s message was that reading about the intense chess matches in the novel would motivate the reader to try and learn the myriad of strategies that can be applied in the game. However, what the novel offers, especially during corona, is much more than kindling an interest in chess. 

The novels protagonist is, much like Stefan Zweig was, an Austrian Jew fleeing the Nazi regime. However, unlike Zweig, the reader learns that Dr. B was captured in the early years of the war. His status as the guardian of the wealth of Austrian nobility, means that rather than place Dr. B in a concentration camp, he is placed in a hotel room in Vienna where he is to stay until he shares the whereabouts of the wealth with the Nazi regime. In the room, Dr. B is left with no distractions and the reader starts to see his mind slowly unravels as the moths go on. As he is on the brink of collapse, he manages to steal a small book from one of the guards, containing the moves from the 150 greatest games of chess. With this book, he has some way to keep his mind preoccupied, first by reading it, then by playing each game and all the moves against himself, through splitting his psyche into black and white. We learn the immense value of a distraction, the value of having something to do. This is why I feel the novel is especially hard hitting during this pandemic.

As we are locked down, asked not to see anyone and with poor visibility to the future of regulations, we have to wonder how people are able to mentally cope. The truth is a lot of people cannot. A lot of people find themselves struggling so much mentally that it will have repercussions on their mental health for the remainder of their lives. This is what Chess Story can give some insight into. Even as Dr. B is finally helped by a physician that lies and declares him insane, so that he can be released from captivity, we see how he struggles to handle himself in the real world. Even with all the sought distractions - the sourdough that has been made; all the sweaters that have been knitted - this lock down will indubitably leave scars on our society for years to come. In that, and with the irony that the novel itself will act as a distraction, the novel will feel hard hitting and unbelievably relevant. This helps prove how timeless the incredible writing from Zweig is. You will be left wanting to read all his novels, that were published to help distract from Second World War, as you try to distract yourself from what feels like a never-ending pandemic.  

Reviewed by Gus

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