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Thirty Girls
Esther is a Ugandan teenager abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities, who is struggling to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane is an American journalist who has traveled to Africa, hoping to give a voice to children like Esther and to find her center after a series of failed relationships. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves their stories, giving us razor-sharp portraits of two extraordinary young women confronting displacement, heartbreak, and the struggle to wrest meaning from events that test them both in unimaginable ways.
With mesmerizing emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa's beauty and its horror, Minot gives us her most brilliant and ambitious novel yet.
With mesmerizing emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa's beauty and its horror, Minot gives us her most brilliant and ambitious novel yet.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published February 11, 2014
About the author
Susan Minot
28 books297 followersSusan Minot is an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose books include Monkeys, Folly, Lust & Other Stories, and Evening, which was adapted into the feature film of the same name starring Meryl Streep. Minot was born in Boston and raised in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, attended Brown University, and received her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. She currently lives with her daughter in both New York City and an island off the coast of Maine.
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February 27, 2014
This is one of those books that's sold as a story of atrocities in a little-known country, but that actually focuses on the mundane angst of a visiting American.
Jane is a 38-year-old journalist from New York, who travels to Uganda to recover from a failed marriage. She soon meets the much younger Harry, to whom she attaches herself like a barnacle, obsessing about the relationship while setting out with a group of aimless expats on a road trip to interview children kidnapped by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. The children include Esther, a teenage girl taken hostage along with most of her Catholic school classmates.
Unfortunately, the book skims over the true drama of Esther's and the other girls' stories, in favor of the mundane details of Jane's trip and her affair; indeed, Esther narrates only a third of the book, for all that it's supposedly about the thirty girls. I suspect Jane's chapters are based on personal experience, because they have the ring of travel stories ("The roads were terrible, and when we finally arrived, what we thought was a hotel turned out to be a brothel! And THEN, we asked someone where to find a hotel, and he offered to let us stay at his house!"). Like many travel anecdotes, they are less interesting than the teller imagines, and the road trip drags on interminably. Even when the group arrives in what we're told is a war zone, all that seems to be at stake for them is who's sleeping with whom.
I don't blame Jane for continuing to inhabit her own life, despite being horrified by the plight of the LRA's victims; it's an honest portrayal of the way most people respond to the suffering of strangers. I do, however, blame the author for using the story of the kidnapped girls as a hook to draw readers in to the dull mid-life-crisis tale of a privileged American. Another expat tells Jane she has a "wild spirit," but this is nowhere in evidence: she's needy, insecure, content to hand over the reins of her journalistic mission to a group of pleasure-seekers she's just met, and ultimately bland. Meanwhile, though Esther's story has a few shining moments, she is so underdeveloped as to come across as little more than a standard resilient victim. The other girls hardly register except as a jumble of traditional English names (is everyone in Uganda really named this way?) attached to acts of violence. Even the deaths of children at the hands of the LRA are rushed; it's only when a white expat is the victim of violence that Minot fully develops the event and its consequences.
As for the writing, Minot does a good job of capturing speech rhythms; I immediately heard the East African accent in Esther's narration, for instance. Her style itself, however.... well, see for yourself:
"Harry turned right down a slope of flattened grass strewn with hulking boulders at the end of which sat a stone house with a thatched roof."
"A sliver of light green pool could be seen at the end of an alley of cedar trees and a gigantic palm tree rose far past the other trees like an exploding firework. Marsh stretched beyond with inky grass markings and black twisted trees. The purple lozenge of the lake lay farther."
Ultimately, this book bored and disappointed me; the story of the kidnapped girls is worthy of a novel but becomes little more than the backdrop against which Jane's identity crisis plays out, and Jane's story lacks the vitality and insight to carry the narrative itself. I recommend passing on this one.
Jane is a 38-year-old journalist from New York, who travels to Uganda to recover from a failed marriage. She soon meets the much younger Harry, to whom she attaches herself like a barnacle, obsessing about the relationship while setting out with a group of aimless expats on a road trip to interview children kidnapped by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. The children include Esther, a teenage girl taken hostage along with most of her Catholic school classmates.
Unfortunately, the book skims over the true drama of Esther's and the other girls' stories, in favor of the mundane details of Jane's trip and her affair; indeed, Esther narrates only a third of the book, for all that it's supposedly about the thirty girls. I suspect Jane's chapters are based on personal experience, because they have the ring of travel stories ("The roads were terrible, and when we finally arrived, what we thought was a hotel turned out to be a brothel! And THEN, we asked someone where to find a hotel, and he offered to let us stay at his house!"). Like many travel anecdotes, they are less interesting than the teller imagines, and the road trip drags on interminably. Even when the group arrives in what we're told is a war zone, all that seems to be at stake for them is who's sleeping with whom.
I don't blame Jane for continuing to inhabit her own life, despite being horrified by the plight of the LRA's victims; it's an honest portrayal of the way most people respond to the suffering of strangers. I do, however, blame the author for using the story of the kidnapped girls as a hook to draw readers in to the dull mid-life-crisis tale of a privileged American. Another expat tells Jane she has a "wild spirit," but this is nowhere in evidence: she's needy, insecure, content to hand over the reins of her journalistic mission to a group of pleasure-seekers she's just met, and ultimately bland. Meanwhile, though Esther's story has a few shining moments, she is so underdeveloped as to come across as little more than a standard resilient victim. The other girls hardly register except as a jumble of traditional English names (is everyone in Uganda really named this way?) attached to acts of violence. Even the deaths of children at the hands of the LRA are rushed; it's only when a white expat is the victim of violence that Minot fully develops the event and its consequences.
As for the writing, Minot does a good job of capturing speech rhythms; I immediately heard the East African accent in Esther's narration, for instance. Her style itself, however.... well, see for yourself:
"Harry turned right down a slope of flattened grass strewn with hulking boulders at the end of which sat a stone house with a thatched roof."
"A sliver of light green pool could be seen at the end of an alley of cedar trees and a gigantic palm tree rose far past the other trees like an exploding firework. Marsh stretched beyond with inky grass markings and black twisted trees. The purple lozenge of the lake lay farther."
Ultimately, this book bored and disappointed me; the story of the kidnapped girls is worthy of a novel but becomes little more than the backdrop against which Jane's identity crisis plays out, and Jane's story lacks the vitality and insight to carry the narrative itself. I recommend passing on this one.
October 27, 2018
Minot is a tremendous writer, and I've been a fan for years, but this novel made me angry.
UPDATE: Just read an extraordinary novel similarly focused on true life events and hardships (Anthony Marra's "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"), and wanted to say to Susan Minot: "THIS is how it's done! THIS is how you write someone else's story without putting yourself in it!"
The story of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Uganda (so eerily and sadly similar to what just happened in Nigeria) is told beautifully and is definitely worth telling. In these pages, it's a quiet but compelling portrayal of courage and suffering, horror and love - seen in and by the girls, their teachers, and their parents. Esther's story is gripping and immersive.
So why oh why did Minot (whose acknowledgements at the end are beyond pompous - "the author" this, and "the author" that) have to insert herself into the novel? Here comes Jane/Susan, a self-centered pseudo-journalist who learns about the schoolgirls (as Minot did) at a NYC dinner party and takes it upon herself (as Minot did) to raise awareness by writing their story. Fine, but the whiny Jane/Susan narrative is unbearable, bogged down by the insecurities and tunnel vision of a beautiful woman approaching middle age (as Minot is), falling in with a hedonistic group of dilettante ex-pats (as Minot did), and falling in love with a much younger man (as I expect Minot did as well). When Esther's life intersects with Jane/Susan's life, the result is ridiculous: much wiping-away of upwelling tears by the white folk, followed by a gift to Esther that has the highly unlikely effect of jumpstarting her healing process. I almost abandoned this novel partway through, and although I finished it, I'm not sure I made the right choice.
Believe me, Jane/Susan was the last thing Esther needed - and I would have been much happier if I'd read only Esther's story.
UPDATE: Just read an extraordinary novel similarly focused on true life events and hardships (Anthony Marra's "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"), and wanted to say to Susan Minot: "THIS is how it's done! THIS is how you write someone else's story without putting yourself in it!"
The story of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Uganda (so eerily and sadly similar to what just happened in Nigeria) is told beautifully and is definitely worth telling. In these pages, it's a quiet but compelling portrayal of courage and suffering, horror and love - seen in and by the girls, their teachers, and their parents. Esther's story is gripping and immersive.
So why oh why did Minot (whose acknowledgements at the end are beyond pompous - "the author" this, and "the author" that) have to insert herself into the novel? Here comes Jane/Susan, a self-centered pseudo-journalist who learns about the schoolgirls (as Minot did) at a NYC dinner party and takes it upon herself (as Minot did) to raise awareness by writing their story. Fine, but the whiny Jane/Susan narrative is unbearable, bogged down by the insecurities and tunnel vision of a beautiful woman approaching middle age (as Minot is), falling in with a hedonistic group of dilettante ex-pats (as Minot did), and falling in love with a much younger man (as I expect Minot did as well). When Esther's life intersects with Jane/Susan's life, the result is ridiculous: much wiping-away of upwelling tears by the white folk, followed by a gift to Esther that has the highly unlikely effect of jumpstarting her healing process. I almost abandoned this novel partway through, and although I finished it, I'm not sure I made the right choice.
Believe me, Jane/Susan was the last thing Esther needed - and I would have been much happier if I'd read only Esther's story.
September 16, 2016
There is a subtle brilliance to this juxtaposition of a disaffected American woman who comes to Africa to do a story on the mass kidnapping of school girls and one of the survivors who is trying to find meaning by telling her story. Jane is recovering from a bad marriage that involved drug abuse by her husband, while Esther is recovering from years of effective slavery by a rebel cult which preys upon the civilian population. One can’t help being disoriented by such an unequal comparison. We feel so much shock and sympathy for Esther as she is taken with a large group from her Catholic school in northern Uganda and marched into the bush. And admiration for the heroism of the nun Giulia as she pursues them and through praying with their leader garners the release of all but thirty. In the alternating sections from Jane’s perspective we are torn between feeling the pettiness of her problems in comparison to Esther’s and getting invested in her quest to make a difference by telling the world about the girls’ story.
On some levels Jane’s activities in Kenya before travelling into Uganda feels some kind of indictment of western civilization. She joins a circle of others who have come to Africa to escape their lives for various kinds of adventure, including partying and promiscuous sex. Though Jane hangs out with them, she more of an ordinary everyman than dissolute and decadent. She ends up homing in on a relationship with one man, Harry, a bush pilot much younger than her. She ends up serving as a fair avatar for so many of us who hear about these terrible dramas like the abductions on the news and have no meaningful way of dealing with it.
She somehow engages a group of four of the ex-pats to help her with her travel to Uganda to pursue the story. Most seem to admire her mission, though when it comes down to it, knowing the outline of the events is their limit, and unlike her they avoid detailed knowledge and experience of the brutality and rape that the girls experienced.
Even absorbed she had a voice inside murmuring, You do not know what it is like to be pulled from your house in the middle of the night … and another, continuous voice at the bottom of her mind like subtitles: Why did this happen to them and not me?
Worst of all the girls (and boys) are bound with them by initiation into forced participation in punishing or killing their unruly peers or by joining in on bandit raids. Boundaries are passed that are next to impossible to return from. In the heart of darkness, the Kurtz of the tale is the cult leader Kony hiding out in Sudan. He comes off as spoiled and deluded with magical thinking. A real chaos factor in the woodwork, yet behind it all motivated to grow a family he must never have had.
Throughout it all, there are eerie parallels in the resilient spirits of Ether and Jane. Jane suffers from her own sense of lost family and lack of belonging, so Esther’s words must strike a chord:
You turn new in a new place. Where are you being taken? …You wonder where you belong. It seemed you used to belong somewhere. Maybe you never did. …
In a new place you are surprised to find a feeling of home.
You think, I cannot go on. I won’t make it. Then you do.
You pray, Help me not turn into a monster.
Esther describes her methods of resilience as based on mentally escaping present horrors almost like an out-of-the-body experience, holding on to a sense of self in an imaginary marble bowl. Harry notices that Jane has a similar approach to absenting herself as an emotional defense. In the following exchange with Harry it seems she doubts the power of mental escape and is not aware of doing it herself:
Did you know that it’s a myth that trauma victims block things out? It’s actually the opposite of what happens. It remains engraved. You do, said Harry. What? Block things out. I do? I watch you go away and you’re right here. Really?
Ultimately, we are headed toward for some mutual benefit for Jane from listening to Esther’s story and Esther from telling her story to someone who listens. Esther’s experience may be more real and painful, but Jane’s is a hard row to hoe as well:
The stories told by the girls were engulfing her. She was filled to the brim with the images. …Other realities were layers away, like overlapping screens …Even the soft air fanning her damp neck was a layer away from where she really was. What was the line? To learn of another’s suffering is to confront one’s own shame.
The audio version of the book was well done. Despite the meaningful messages I gleaned, the overall pleasure for me I rate at a B+ (3.5). It didn’t scale higher because I didn’t get enough of a solid sense of Africa and its people and because several characters leaned toward caricatures. The overall impact reminds me of the response a friend got in a rejection of her poem submitted for publication: “It didn’t insist enough.”
On some levels Jane’s activities in Kenya before travelling into Uganda feels some kind of indictment of western civilization. She joins a circle of others who have come to Africa to escape their lives for various kinds of adventure, including partying and promiscuous sex. Though Jane hangs out with them, she more of an ordinary everyman than dissolute and decadent. She ends up homing in on a relationship with one man, Harry, a bush pilot much younger than her. She ends up serving as a fair avatar for so many of us who hear about these terrible dramas like the abductions on the news and have no meaningful way of dealing with it.
She somehow engages a group of four of the ex-pats to help her with her travel to Uganda to pursue the story. Most seem to admire her mission, though when it comes down to it, knowing the outline of the events is their limit, and unlike her they avoid detailed knowledge and experience of the brutality and rape that the girls experienced.
Even absorbed she had a voice inside murmuring, You do not know what it is like to be pulled from your house in the middle of the night … and another, continuous voice at the bottom of her mind like subtitles: Why did this happen to them and not me?
Worst of all the girls (and boys) are bound with them by initiation into forced participation in punishing or killing their unruly peers or by joining in on bandit raids. Boundaries are passed that are next to impossible to return from. In the heart of darkness, the Kurtz of the tale is the cult leader Kony hiding out in Sudan. He comes off as spoiled and deluded with magical thinking. A real chaos factor in the woodwork, yet behind it all motivated to grow a family he must never have had.
Throughout it all, there are eerie parallels in the resilient spirits of Ether and Jane. Jane suffers from her own sense of lost family and lack of belonging, so Esther’s words must strike a chord:
You turn new in a new place. Where are you being taken? …You wonder where you belong. It seemed you used to belong somewhere. Maybe you never did. …
In a new place you are surprised to find a feeling of home.
You think, I cannot go on. I won’t make it. Then you do.
You pray, Help me not turn into a monster.
Esther describes her methods of resilience as based on mentally escaping present horrors almost like an out-of-the-body experience, holding on to a sense of self in an imaginary marble bowl. Harry notices that Jane has a similar approach to absenting herself as an emotional defense. In the following exchange with Harry it seems she doubts the power of mental escape and is not aware of doing it herself:
Did you know that it’s a myth that trauma victims block things out? It’s actually the opposite of what happens. It remains engraved. You do, said Harry. What? Block things out. I do? I watch you go away and you’re right here. Really?
Ultimately, we are headed toward for some mutual benefit for Jane from listening to Esther’s story and Esther from telling her story to someone who listens. Esther’s experience may be more real and painful, but Jane’s is a hard row to hoe as well:
The stories told by the girls were engulfing her. She was filled to the brim with the images. …Other realities were layers away, like overlapping screens …Even the soft air fanning her damp neck was a layer away from where she really was. What was the line? To learn of another’s suffering is to confront one’s own shame.
The audio version of the book was well done. Despite the meaningful messages I gleaned, the overall pleasure for me I rate at a B+ (3.5). It didn’t scale higher because I didn’t get enough of a solid sense of Africa and its people and because several characters leaned toward caricatures. The overall impact reminds me of the response a friend got in a rejection of her poem submitted for publication: “It didn’t insist enough.”
April 19, 2016
This is a novelization of the girls abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda in 1996. I can tell the author did a lot of research, including (I think) some in-person interviews. It is a shame, then, that she felt she needed to make a female American journalist character the primary focus of the book, rather than the nuns and children the story should be about. In the first 100 pages, we get a few pages of the harrowing account of the abduction and like 80 pages about white non-Africans touring around, going to parties and having sex and not having a care in the world. I appreciate the contrast but the author seemed more committed to fleshing out those characters and story lines than what seemed like the far more compelling story.
There is this awful moment that solidified my dislike of the book, when the American journalist talks to one of the escaped abductees ONE TIME and has a MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH that nobody else at the trauma center had been able to do. I mean really? The temporary white savior saves them all!
Except she doesn't. She can't. Even if it were possible for a green journalist from a different world to break through to one person who had suffered a tragedy at this level, what about the thousands of other children? (An interview with a UNICEF spokesperson in 2005 said there were around 40,000 children looking for shelter on a daily basis - and that was 19 years into this same group of resistance fighters still doing as they liked with the children in Uganda.
I actually waited a few days before writing this review but I find I'm still mad at the book, and at the author for focusing on the wrong things, and for making the story about a white woman's journey where there are so many more stories to tell. I feel I also made as mis-step reading books by non-African authors, and will try to do better for the rest of my year reading Africa!
There is this awful moment that solidified my dislike of the book, when the American journalist talks to one of the escaped abductees ONE TIME and has a MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH that nobody else at the trauma center had been able to do. I mean really? The temporary white savior saves them all!
Except she doesn't. She can't. Even if it were possible for a green journalist from a different world to break through to one person who had suffered a tragedy at this level, what about the thousands of other children? (An interview with a UNICEF spokesperson in 2005 said there were around 40,000 children looking for shelter on a daily basis - and that was 19 years into this same group of resistance fighters still doing as they liked with the children in Uganda.
I actually waited a few days before writing this review but I find I'm still mad at the book, and at the author for focusing on the wrong things, and for making the story about a white woman's journey where there are so many more stories to tell. I feel I also made as mis-step reading books by non-African authors, and will try to do better for the rest of my year reading Africa!
June 4, 2016
I see people’s eyes slide away as I describe this book:
What are you reading Alena?
The fictionalized account of girls kidnapped from a convent school in Uganda.
Why, their eyes ask, would I want to read about that? But, it’s not really a want. I could have just as easily picked up a psychological thriller or a WWII novel or a Midwestern family saga. I read to immerse myself in worlds near and far. This brilliant novel took me across the world to the heartbreak and terror happening right this second.
Minot brilliantly steers her two protagonists through cruelties and kindnesses. Knowing the heaviness of her material, she wisely chooses to have Esther and Jane share their experiences as a retelling…we are often reminded they are in the future sharing their pasts, which adds a level of safety and security to the reader. Don’t get me wrong, the events of this book are violent and difficult to read, but the slight remove in storytelling strikes just the right tone.
Without question, this is a novel worth reading, worth recommending.
What are you reading Alena?
The fictionalized account of girls kidnapped from a convent school in Uganda.
Why, their eyes ask, would I want to read about that? But, it’s not really a want. I could have just as easily picked up a psychological thriller or a WWII novel or a Midwestern family saga. I read to immerse myself in worlds near and far. This brilliant novel took me across the world to the heartbreak and terror happening right this second.
Who said you choose your life? You have gone away and new things steer you. Wind, hands. Some cruel, some kind. There is madness in the dark and madness in the morning with the smell of smoke.
Minot brilliantly steers her two protagonists through cruelties and kindnesses. Knowing the heaviness of her material, she wisely chooses to have Esther and Jane share their experiences as a retelling…we are often reminded they are in the future sharing their pasts, which adds a level of safety and security to the reader. Don’t get me wrong, the events of this book are violent and difficult to read, but the slight remove in storytelling strikes just the right tone.
For myself I tried to keep a calm place inside of me. This place I thought of as my soul. I pictured it in the shape of a white bowl. No one could disturb that bowl, it was old and curved and only property only mine. I would keep that white bowl in my mind.
Without question, this is a novel worth reading, worth recommending.
July 6, 2015
This book and the impression it left on me have not been far from my mind since I finished it several days ago. I had a feeling of deja vu in the early pages, and realized I had picked up Thirty Girls and set it aside last year after only two or three chapters. I can't recall why it didn't speak to me then, but I'm so glad I returned to complete it.
The 'I've read this before' feeling also rose because I so recently read Francesca Marciano's striking Rules of the Wild, written several years before Thirty Girls. But the settings--Nairobi, East Africa--and the central character, a white, Western woman at unease in her expat surroundings, running from one past, yet colliding with her bohemian, privileged present amidst suffering and war, are one and the same. Yet the books diverge at least as much as they run parallel. They complement, rather than compete.
Whereas Marciano brought us deeply into Esme's psyche as she seeks to weave herself into the fabric of an African life and to find her calling, Minot's Jane knows she is just a visitor, and one with a specific mission: to tell the story of thirty teenaged girls kidnapped by Ugandan rebels.
Telling this story is also Minot's mission, and she does so with aching, devastating beauty. She gives voice to one girl in particular: Esther Akello. It is through Esther's eyes and ears, to the sound of her voice, that we see, hear and feel the trauma of those stolen children of Uganda. Could we not hear, too, the voices of their sisters to the north, those women and girls of Nigeria who are also casualties of fractured borders and ceaseless conflict?
Cognitive dissonance splinters the framework of the narrative, as it shifts from Jane's story to Esther's. It caused this reader considerable frustration. Jane is accompanied by a ragtag crew of bohemian whites: Lana and Don, Pierre and Harry. Harry was born and raised in Kenya. He's worked to save wild dogs, worked for this NGO and that, yet he doesn't seem to have a passion for much beyond hang-gliding. His detachment is echoed in nearly every Western-born and/or white character: they take pride in their adaptation to and knowledge of Africa, but their existence is pointless. Take them away and no one would notice--their footprints are material, their contributions immaterial. Jane slips in the mud and into Harry's arms early in the book; fifteen years her junior, Harry becomes the prism through which Jane considers her aging self, both her physical degradation and her moral lassitude. Although I was curious and followed Jane's story, I felt as detached from her and her new friends as they seemed to be from the terror unfolding in Uganda.
Where this story pulses and breathes is in the bearing witness of the horrors experienced by the Thirty Girls. Minot's language changes as she so beautifully captures Esther's voice; it becomes plaintive and poetic, yet strong and clear as a bell. The girls' survival becomes a thing we keen for.
The narrative weaves Esther and Jane's story in tighter and tighter braids until at last they meet. What this meeting brings, who changes, who goes on and why is something for a reader to discover. But Susan Minot does loving, compassionate justice to the girls who are taken, were taken, are still being stolen today. Whatever weaknesses this novel may have, it tells a strong, necessary story in precise, yet lovely language.
The 'I've read this before' feeling also rose because I so recently read Francesca Marciano's striking Rules of the Wild, written several years before Thirty Girls. But the settings--Nairobi, East Africa--and the central character, a white, Western woman at unease in her expat surroundings, running from one past, yet colliding with her bohemian, privileged present amidst suffering and war, are one and the same. Yet the books diverge at least as much as they run parallel. They complement, rather than compete.
Whereas Marciano brought us deeply into Esme's psyche as she seeks to weave herself into the fabric of an African life and to find her calling, Minot's Jane knows she is just a visitor, and one with a specific mission: to tell the story of thirty teenaged girls kidnapped by Ugandan rebels.
Telling this story is also Minot's mission, and she does so with aching, devastating beauty. She gives voice to one girl in particular: Esther Akello. It is through Esther's eyes and ears, to the sound of her voice, that we see, hear and feel the trauma of those stolen children of Uganda. Could we not hear, too, the voices of their sisters to the north, those women and girls of Nigeria who are also casualties of fractured borders and ceaseless conflict?
Cognitive dissonance splinters the framework of the narrative, as it shifts from Jane's story to Esther's. It caused this reader considerable frustration. Jane is accompanied by a ragtag crew of bohemian whites: Lana and Don, Pierre and Harry. Harry was born and raised in Kenya. He's worked to save wild dogs, worked for this NGO and that, yet he doesn't seem to have a passion for much beyond hang-gliding. His detachment is echoed in nearly every Western-born and/or white character: they take pride in their adaptation to and knowledge of Africa, but their existence is pointless. Take them away and no one would notice--their footprints are material, their contributions immaterial. Jane slips in the mud and into Harry's arms early in the book; fifteen years her junior, Harry becomes the prism through which Jane considers her aging self, both her physical degradation and her moral lassitude. Although I was curious and followed Jane's story, I felt as detached from her and her new friends as they seemed to be from the terror unfolding in Uganda.
Where this story pulses and breathes is in the bearing witness of the horrors experienced by the Thirty Girls. Minot's language changes as she so beautifully captures Esther's voice; it becomes plaintive and poetic, yet strong and clear as a bell. The girls' survival becomes a thing we keen for.
The narrative weaves Esther and Jane's story in tighter and tighter braids until at last they meet. What this meeting brings, who changes, who goes on and why is something for a reader to discover. But Susan Minot does loving, compassionate justice to the girls who are taken, were taken, are still being stolen today. Whatever weaknesses this novel may have, it tells a strong, necessary story in precise, yet lovely language.
May 29, 2014
This is a fictional account based on the actual abduction of school girls from St. Mary's College of Aboke, Uganda in 1996. It seemed like the perfect time to read this now that the world has come together to find another group of girls, abducted by another madman.
The girls in this book were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army led by the evil Joseph Kony, and after reading this book one can see what a deluded psychopath he is in fact. We first meet Esther, one of the girls taken who later escapes, when she is in a rehabilitation camp. A camp that tries to acclimate the girls back into something resembling the life they had left. We hear her story as she tells it to journalists and an expat named Jane who is interviewing the girls and boys at the camp, so that she can share their stories with the world. These stories made me cringe, what these poor girls went through, how they were told their families no longer wanted them, how they were forced to kill and so many other horrors. After this How do these girls manage to assimilate back into something resembling a normal life? At one point Esther asks, Can God see Sudan? One of the camps they were taken to was in Sudan
The story is told in alternating chapters, Jane's story and Esther's. Jane has come to Africa, at loose ends, not knowing what to do with her life, not knowing how to move forward. She too has suffered and had a tragedy in her own life. At first I did not like Jane's story very much, she meets other ex-pats and it seems all they don is drink, have sex and party. But by the end of the book, Jane somewhat redeemed herself. After hearing Esther and the others story, she cannot get the fate of these girls out of her head.
Quite frankly, neither can I. In an afterword the author explains where Kony is now and I hope only bad things happen to him. Good writing, strong and intense subject. What makes this bearable to read is that it is written in a matter of fact, somewhat distancing type of tone, one that lets the reader feel their own emotions to the subject instead of having them drawn out.
The girls in this book were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army led by the evil Joseph Kony, and after reading this book one can see what a deluded psychopath he is in fact. We first meet Esther, one of the girls taken who later escapes, when she is in a rehabilitation camp. A camp that tries to acclimate the girls back into something resembling the life they had left. We hear her story as she tells it to journalists and an expat named Jane who is interviewing the girls and boys at the camp, so that she can share their stories with the world. These stories made me cringe, what these poor girls went through, how they were told their families no longer wanted them, how they were forced to kill and so many other horrors. After this How do these girls manage to assimilate back into something resembling a normal life? At one point Esther asks, Can God see Sudan? One of the camps they were taken to was in Sudan
The story is told in alternating chapters, Jane's story and Esther's. Jane has come to Africa, at loose ends, not knowing what to do with her life, not knowing how to move forward. She too has suffered and had a tragedy in her own life. At first I did not like Jane's story very much, she meets other ex-pats and it seems all they don is drink, have sex and party. But by the end of the book, Jane somewhat redeemed herself. After hearing Esther and the others story, she cannot get the fate of these girls out of her head.
Quite frankly, neither can I. In an afterword the author explains where Kony is now and I hope only bad things happen to him. Good writing, strong and intense subject. What makes this bearable to read is that it is written in a matter of fact, somewhat distancing type of tone, one that lets the reader feel their own emotions to the subject instead of having them drawn out.
July 2, 2016
Susan Minot's books in general do not have real high average ratings on Goodreads, but I've read a couple of her books and liked them more than the average reader did. Thirty Girls became available on audio so I thought I'd try a familiar author again, especially after reading some 4 and 5 star reviews by friends. But I agree with the 3.4 average rating on this one; well, actually 3.0 stars. My heart broke for the story of the African girls abducted and raped by a madman because God told him to do it. But the story of Jane, an American journalist writing their story, turned me off. I felt the girls' story did not go deep enough into their mistreatment and the injustice of it all, while Jane's story was pretty self-absorbed, until the end, when she realized....
People said that it had to be all in you, that you couldn't depend on other people to make you better. But that wasn't true. It was only through people that you learned how to be better.
People said that it had to be all in you, that you couldn't depend on other people to make you better. But that wasn't true. It was only through people that you learned how to be better.
April 25, 2014
This book should have been called Thirty Something Girl. Then, it would have been accurate. This isn't a story of the thirty girls abducted by Joseph Kony's LRA from a school called St. Mary's. One of them, Esther, narrates less than a third of the book about the (severely edited I think) horrors of the LRA, wherein we're lucky if she names about 6 girls by their first name. The rest is all our middle-aged American Jane, and her love affair with a much younger Harry. She doesn't even seem emotionally mature enough to be having a mid-life crisis, to be honest. To give a glimpse of the imbalance, there are ~35 pages wasted on a contrived tragedy that happens around Jane, and about 3 lines dedicated to the little girl that Esther was made to kill by beating with a stick. There are two characters called Sharon and Beatrice that Jane interviews who have terrible stories about the LRA, but all we know about those stories is that they left the white people pale and shattered.
I'll just say that this wasn't what I expected to be reading. 1 star.
I'll just say that this wasn't what I expected to be reading. 1 star.
March 27, 2015
It may seem like a contradiction in terms to label a novel that focuses on real-life atrocities in Uganda as a “hopeful novel.” But indeed, there is a thread of hope that runs through Susan Minot’s new novel, based on the true-life tale of the abduction of 30 girls from St. Mary’s College boarding school in Uganda by the Lord’s Resistance Army.
There are two stories that are interwoven through alternating chapters. The first is that Esther Akello, who has experienced and witnessed horrors that no pre-teen girl should ever be forced to endure. Now striving to adapt in a rehabilitation center, Esther has become robotic as her mind struggles to cope with what she has been forced to undergo.
“How were our days? We searched for food. We gathered vine leaves and cooked them. We ate cassava leaves, simsim, boiled sorghum. We carried the radio, carried water, and were always thirsty…” The prose is both understated and filled with precision as Susan Minot, in unflinching detail, allows Esther to relay the ritualized rapes and impregnation, the beatings, the dehumanizing of these previously sheltered and innocent girls. The story is realistic and haunting and very convincingly depicts a young girl whose tortures have not extinguished her sense of self and unrelenting hope for the future.
Esther’s story is alternated with that of Jane Wood, an American reporter, whose sense of self – in contrast to Esther’s – is very lacking. Jane travels to Uganda to interview the kidnapping victims yet the reader suspects that her unspoken purpose is to fill the emptiness in her own life. Upon arrival, Jane in short order connects with her one-time acquaintance Lana, begins a romance with a 22-year-old named Harry who is 15 years younger, and travels to the site with a group of other free-spirited Americans.
For much of this book, I was in 5-star territory. The contrast of Jane’s own rather pitiful and privileged attempts to find meaning and love seemed in direct contrast to Esther’s far more compelling story of survival and striving for self-definition (as opposed to Jane’s striving for definition-through-others). “She would never forget them, she thought, then immediately wondered how long it would be before she did,” Jane reflects…and sure enough, her obsession with Harry quickly helps her mitigate what she sees.
Yet unaccountably (for this reader), Jane’s concerns are elevated to the level of Esther’s as Ms. Minot strives to bring home the message that we are all connected with our losses and our dreams. At one point, as Jane and her entourage listen to Esther and the victims, Minot writes, “By the time the girls finished talking they were hitting at each other and laughing, the white people before them looking pale and shattered.” I wish the author had taken the more courageous option of focusing on the separateness of experiences that
There are two stories that are interwoven through alternating chapters. The first is that Esther Akello, who has experienced and witnessed horrors that no pre-teen girl should ever be forced to endure. Now striving to adapt in a rehabilitation center, Esther has become robotic as her mind struggles to cope with what she has been forced to undergo.
“How were our days? We searched for food. We gathered vine leaves and cooked them. We ate cassava leaves, simsim, boiled sorghum. We carried the radio, carried water, and were always thirsty…” The prose is both understated and filled with precision as Susan Minot, in unflinching detail, allows Esther to relay the ritualized rapes and impregnation, the beatings, the dehumanizing of these previously sheltered and innocent girls. The story is realistic and haunting and very convincingly depicts a young girl whose tortures have not extinguished her sense of self and unrelenting hope for the future.
Esther’s story is alternated with that of Jane Wood, an American reporter, whose sense of self – in contrast to Esther’s – is very lacking. Jane travels to Uganda to interview the kidnapping victims yet the reader suspects that her unspoken purpose is to fill the emptiness in her own life. Upon arrival, Jane in short order connects with her one-time acquaintance Lana, begins a romance with a 22-year-old named Harry who is 15 years younger, and travels to the site with a group of other free-spirited Americans.
For much of this book, I was in 5-star territory. The contrast of Jane’s own rather pitiful and privileged attempts to find meaning and love seemed in direct contrast to Esther’s far more compelling story of survival and striving for self-definition (as opposed to Jane’s striving for definition-through-others). “She would never forget them, she thought, then immediately wondered how long it would be before she did,” Jane reflects…and sure enough, her obsession with Harry quickly helps her mitigate what she sees.
Yet unaccountably (for this reader), Jane’s concerns are elevated to the level of Esther’s as Ms. Minot strives to bring home the message that we are all connected with our losses and our dreams. At one point, as Jane and her entourage listen to Esther and the victims, Minot writes, “By the time the girls finished talking they were hitting at each other and laughing, the white people before them looking pale and shattered.” I wish the author had taken the more courageous option of focusing on the separateness of experiences that
April 24, 2014
What a massive disappointment. The story of Esther, one of 139 girls kidnapped by the LRA from her school, was one I cared about. Unfortunately, the book was oddly structured and, worse, spent most of its time focusing on Jane, a completely unnecessary to the plot journalist from America. I found Jane (who spent moments with Esther at the rehabilitation camp but was, of course, the one who got through to her & helped her find peace) and her place in this story offensive.
August 13, 2013
This book is amazing. I am a huge Minot fan, and this is her best yet. The juxtaposition of privileged white travelers against the abducted girls is a brilliant move. it's impossible to read without getting angry, but the prose will wash over you like a warm bath. wonderfully disorienting. loved it.
April 10, 2014
Esther's story merits at least 4 stars, but the self-centered writer having an Eat Pray Love experience in Kenya and Uganda seriously hurts this book. I hate the idea of a white savior, and I really hate juxtaposing a heartbreaking story with an annoying one. Minot can write, and this would have been a much better book without the prospective of the American writer.
March 10, 2014
Some cruelties are so incomprehensible that our instinct for self-preservation often makes us want to shut knowledge of them out. “I hear their stories and feel bad,” a character says in Susan Minot’s new novel, Thirty Girls. “How does it help them if my head is filled with horrible images?” Another character counters, “It helps them if you listen.”
Such is the case for the story of tens of thousands of Ugandan children kidnapped and forced to become soldiers and sex slaves for the Lord’s Resistance Army, a group of rebels led by Joseph Kony that has waged a guerrilla war for two decades. In her skillful and moving sixth book, Minot focuses on a group of girls the LRA kidnapped from St. Mary’s College of Aboke in 1996, a true story that she’s fictionalized and personified in the voice of one remarkable survivor, Esther Akello.
Thirty Girls opens on the terrible night the rebels came and took the girls from dormitories at their Catholic school. When Sister Giulia, the headmistress, wakes to the news that the rebels have forced their way onto campus, she wants to run to the girls, but other nuns persuade her to hide with them in the garden, hoping the “giant plank” barring the girls’ door will keep them safe. It does not. Sister Giulia immediately sets out on foot to confront the rebels and demand her girls be returned.
Minot conveys the particular psychological cruelty the rebels inflict through their skill at making the victims feel at fault. A rebel leader teases Sister Giulia, “So, next time I come to the school, do not run away.” He says he has taken 139 girls, and he will give her 109, but she must list the names of the 30 who will stay.
She offers herself instead, is refused, and is unable to make a Sophie’s choice. Strong Louise, the captain of the soccer team, lists 30 girls, including herself and her friend Esther Akello, who will narrate the sad and bewildering turns her life takes in clear, understated and unflinching prose. In Esther’s graceful cadences, Minot has captured what she describes as the “sweet softness” of the northern Ugandans’ voices.
Thirty Girls next introduces Jane Wood, an American writer who is unhappily unsettled at age 40 — her ex-husband died of a drug overdose. Jane arrives at her glamorous friend Lana’s house in Nairobi with an assignment to cover the story for a magazine and a vague plan to find someone to drive her to northern Uganda to interview the victims. A Graham Greene-like atmosphere reigns at Lana’s, where several international travelers pursuing love, freedom and the good life are tossed together. It’s a “place where everyone seemed matter-of-factly to lead a life of extremity and daring.”
These characters fall into bed with each other in various combinations, and as much as Jane warns herself not to, she falls hard for young Harry, who is 17 years her junior. Jane came to Africa “wanting to disappear, but now felt more vivid than ever.” Watching these people swirl about leading untethered lives is entertaining, but the counterpoint of Esther’s story gives Thirty Girls moral weight, like that offered in Greene’s best novels.
As the eclectic group ventures to Uganda with Harry at the wheel, Thirty Girls follows their eventful road trip, interspersed with chapters in which Esther, who now lives in a rehabilitation camp for escapees from the LRA, tells the story of her life with the rebels. “I remember in a soft way, as in the distance, how it was to be whole,” Esther says. “Nothing. It was like nothing. You just had wholeness, you did not feel it.”
Esther has endured being forced, on pain of death, to beat another girl; countless rapes; watching her best friend die of AIDS; and bearing a rebel’s baby and losing it.
Jane’s problems aren’t nearly as grave as Esther’s, but the reader still feels sympathy for her, especially as she comes to care increasingly for the Aboke girls throughout her journey, and that’s what Thirty Girls might be about: We’re all suffering humans, but our capacity for empathy offers a chance of reducing that suffering.
Thirty Girls brings faraway calamity home in the form of Esther, a character so endearing that, shutting out her story is not an option.
Jenny Shank’s first novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award.
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainme...
“Thirty Girls,” by Susan Minot
By JENNY SHANK Special Contributor, Dallas Morning News
Published: 08 March 2014 04:28 PM
Such is the case for the story of tens of thousands of Ugandan children kidnapped and forced to become soldiers and sex slaves for the Lord’s Resistance Army, a group of rebels led by Joseph Kony that has waged a guerrilla war for two decades. In her skillful and moving sixth book, Minot focuses on a group of girls the LRA kidnapped from St. Mary’s College of Aboke in 1996, a true story that she’s fictionalized and personified in the voice of one remarkable survivor, Esther Akello.
Thirty Girls opens on the terrible night the rebels came and took the girls from dormitories at their Catholic school. When Sister Giulia, the headmistress, wakes to the news that the rebels have forced their way onto campus, she wants to run to the girls, but other nuns persuade her to hide with them in the garden, hoping the “giant plank” barring the girls’ door will keep them safe. It does not. Sister Giulia immediately sets out on foot to confront the rebels and demand her girls be returned.
Minot conveys the particular psychological cruelty the rebels inflict through their skill at making the victims feel at fault. A rebel leader teases Sister Giulia, “So, next time I come to the school, do not run away.” He says he has taken 139 girls, and he will give her 109, but she must list the names of the 30 who will stay.
She offers herself instead, is refused, and is unable to make a Sophie’s choice. Strong Louise, the captain of the soccer team, lists 30 girls, including herself and her friend Esther Akello, who will narrate the sad and bewildering turns her life takes in clear, understated and unflinching prose. In Esther’s graceful cadences, Minot has captured what she describes as the “sweet softness” of the northern Ugandans’ voices.
Thirty Girls next introduces Jane Wood, an American writer who is unhappily unsettled at age 40 — her ex-husband died of a drug overdose. Jane arrives at her glamorous friend Lana’s house in Nairobi with an assignment to cover the story for a magazine and a vague plan to find someone to drive her to northern Uganda to interview the victims. A Graham Greene-like atmosphere reigns at Lana’s, where several international travelers pursuing love, freedom and the good life are tossed together. It’s a “place where everyone seemed matter-of-factly to lead a life of extremity and daring.”
These characters fall into bed with each other in various combinations, and as much as Jane warns herself not to, she falls hard for young Harry, who is 17 years her junior. Jane came to Africa “wanting to disappear, but now felt more vivid than ever.” Watching these people swirl about leading untethered lives is entertaining, but the counterpoint of Esther’s story gives Thirty Girls moral weight, like that offered in Greene’s best novels.
As the eclectic group ventures to Uganda with Harry at the wheel, Thirty Girls follows their eventful road trip, interspersed with chapters in which Esther, who now lives in a rehabilitation camp for escapees from the LRA, tells the story of her life with the rebels. “I remember in a soft way, as in the distance, how it was to be whole,” Esther says. “Nothing. It was like nothing. You just had wholeness, you did not feel it.”
Esther has endured being forced, on pain of death, to beat another girl; countless rapes; watching her best friend die of AIDS; and bearing a rebel’s baby and losing it.
Jane’s problems aren’t nearly as grave as Esther’s, but the reader still feels sympathy for her, especially as she comes to care increasingly for the Aboke girls throughout her journey, and that’s what Thirty Girls might be about: We’re all suffering humans, but our capacity for empathy offers a chance of reducing that suffering.
Thirty Girls brings faraway calamity home in the form of Esther, a character so endearing that, shutting out her story is not an option.
Jenny Shank’s first novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award.
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainme...
“Thirty Girls,” by Susan Minot
By JENNY SHANK Special Contributor, Dallas Morning News
Published: 08 March 2014 04:28 PM
July 29, 2013
Although this covers similar ground as works by Dave Eggers and Ishmael Beah--both remarkable in their own right--Thirty Girls is even more remarkable because of its fidelity to the novel genre. It is firmly based in reality, but Minot also shines as an artist with deft control of her characters, their voices and interactions, and the collision of plots that leaves the reader shattered, blinded by Esther's unfailing hope for the future and Jane's quest for love in herself and in the world.
June 20, 2020
This book is based on real facts.
It was very hard to keep reading it.
The cruelty and atrocities of human kind are just too hard to accept.
It is very well written, but it felt as if it was written by two different authors, one representing "Esther", my favorite character, and the other as "Jane", the least of my favorites. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is that there was a disconnection somewhere.
(Original review date April 23, 2014 and edited on June 20, 2020 - the e-book is on sale today at $1.99).
It was very hard to keep reading it.
The cruelty and atrocities of human kind are just too hard to accept.
It is very well written, but it felt as if it was written by two different authors, one representing "Esther", my favorite character, and the other as "Jane", the least of my favorites. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is that there was a disconnection somewhere.
(Original review date April 23, 2014 and edited on June 20, 2020 - the e-book is on sale today at $1.99).
May 15, 2014
You belong where you are. You are possible.
A quick, engaging read with a sleek, alternating triptych narrative structure that deals in graphic themes that are not for the faint of heart.
***TRIGGER WARNING*** for those sensitive to descriptions of extreme violence.
Reads as if Cormac McCarthy took to the The Green Hills of Africa. stands on its own to merit attention, both for its focus on an overlooked tragedy in recent history.
A quick, engaging read with a sleek, alternating triptych narrative structure that deals in graphic themes that are not for the faint of heart.
***TRIGGER WARNING*** for those sensitive to descriptions of extreme violence.
Reads as if Cormac McCarthy took to the The Green Hills of Africa. stands on its own to merit attention, both for its focus on an overlooked tragedy in recent history.
February 10, 2015
The following conversation takes place midway through Susan Minot's latest novel. Jane, a writer motivated to go to Uganda and report on the abduction of thirty girls from their Catholic boarding school by rebel soldiers of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, has just come from the school, where she heard the stories of three girls who'd managed to escape, "...their soft voices speaking of unspeakable things."
I was reminded of Dave Eggers's book, What is the What, its intentional blurring of the line between fiction and nonfiction. Minot tells us that she "shamelessly lifted details [from a New York Times Magazine article] and wove them into fiction in the name of telling a version of the story of these girls." Indeed, Minot first told the story of the abducted girls fourteen years ago, in an article for Eggers's magazine, McSweeney's. She also thanks the head of the Concerned Parents Association of Uganda for informing the world of the plight of the abducted children. "Had it not been for her," Minot acknowledges, "the author might never have learned about it, never come to know more about it, and never have written this book."
I appreciate the goodness of Minot's intentions. She genuinely wants to help, and maybe her artful retelling of the girls' stories will inspire readers (like the unsympathetic character Don) to make generous charitable contributions to this or some other worthwhile cause. In the end, though, I'm afraid I agree with Harry.
They handed the bottle back and forth and spoke of the girls.I like Susan Minot's writing very much. I liked it here. She tells the girls' story quite beautifully, alternating between a third-person narration of Jane's quest to get it all down, learn the details, and her unsatisfying relationship with Harry -- unsatisfying to Jane and to the reader -- and a kind of first-person transcription of the thoughts of a kidnapped girl named Esther. There are occasional segments, rather poetic interludes, these, written in the second person as well. Technically, stylistically, it works. But Thirty Girls is not a very good novel.
I don't need to hear the details, Harry said. You get the idea pretty fast.
But it's important to know. Isn't it?
It's important to try to stop it. No one needs to be convinced of that.
But it isn't being stopped. Her arms were around his shoulders and she felt the swell of his back. People should know about it.
I never liked should, he said.
If they know about it, they will be moved to do something...
Children have no economic value, Harry said. African children even less. This has been going on for, what, ten, fifteen years? And who has noticed? She could feel his voice through his back vibrating in her chest.
It's important to speak for the children.
Yup, Harry said. He finished the last swallow of beer. I hear their stories and feel bad. How does it help them if my head is filled with horrible images?
It helps them if you listen, she said.
But I just want to block it out, he said.
I was reminded of Dave Eggers's book, What is the What, its intentional blurring of the line between fiction and nonfiction. Minot tells us that she "shamelessly lifted details [from a New York Times Magazine article] and wove them into fiction in the name of telling a version of the story of these girls." Indeed, Minot first told the story of the abducted girls fourteen years ago, in an article for Eggers's magazine, McSweeney's. She also thanks the head of the Concerned Parents Association of Uganda for informing the world of the plight of the abducted children. "Had it not been for her," Minot acknowledges, "the author might never have learned about it, never come to know more about it, and never have written this book."
I appreciate the goodness of Minot's intentions. She genuinely wants to help, and maybe her artful retelling of the girls' stories will inspire readers (like the unsympathetic character Don) to make generous charitable contributions to this or some other worthwhile cause. In the end, though, I'm afraid I agree with Harry.
August 21, 2013
I've never read Susan Minot and not sure I would've ever read her. I was given an advanced copy from a dear friend and I have to say I was meant to read this book. The juxtaposition of story from these two women is amazingly well done. I felt myself in the pages from the love to doubt to fear and back again. This is a must read!
June 14, 2018
Phew, this book is not for the feint of heart. I have a feeling this is one that is going to stay with me a while. I could appreciate the juxtaposition of the stories of the Ugandan girls who were captured by the rebels with the American journalist experiencing Africa, and love, while witnessing the horror of the girls' experiences. And Jane was relatable in her self-doubt, neediness, and guilt for finding love and joy amid the tragedy, but what kept this book from being 5 stars was that she was also hard to like and still managed to feel flat up until close to the end. Glad I read this though.
May 13, 2014
"Something stretches beyond you, drawing you along, and as you move forward in a dark place you can barely make out shapes and your faces feels invisible. No one sees you anymore. You don���t think it, but you have the odd feeling: Maybe this will lead me home."
The book focuses on two central characters. Jane Wood an American journalist is in Uganda to do a story on the abductions and the survivors of the kidnappings by Kony's LRA, and Esther Akello, a surviving kidnapped girl of the LRA. The narrative alternates between Jane and Esther's story's.
Minot's adeptness with the narrative is well done. Her descriptions of the LRA and the despicable acts committed are appalling and emotional. Learning of what the girls endured is halting and moving. Affecting subject matter approached with deference by Minot.
Esther's character is well developed. Her story is gripping and leaves the reader gasping as well as exhausted. Esther Akello is the heart and soul of the story and remains in your thoughts.
Where the story fails for me is the character of Jane Wood. After learning more about Jane my hopes for this being a must read is quickly extinguished. Jane is lost, she is on a quest to try to find herself. Lacking self esteem and being extremely self absorbed you really find it difficult to like her, rather you find yourself tolerating her. She is a poor example of a woman, her thinking, her character and behavior, an illustration I loathe. Jane has a new 'boy toy' she has met in a matter of weeks and finds her every thought wrapped around Harry. I was disgusted by the lack of professionalism and basic human decency she demonstrated while embarking on this project. Hearing of the abuse and violence and Jane still drifts off with thoughts of Harry. Minot should have focused solely on Esther or altered Jane's character to reflect a positive light. Bottom line Jane Wood is one confused woman. Her persona feels very out of place given the magnitude of the story.
���Thoughts of Harry came in the day like reveries, then she would stop the thoughts. How could she be thinking so lightly of love, here in a place where people���s lips were cut off and girls were snatched out of their beds?���
If it wasn't for the severely flawed Jane this book was have really made more of an impact for me but as it is with Jane's poor demeanor, low self esteem and self absorption it scars the sensitive and compelling narrative, it feels like a story, a story with a character desensitized and narcissistic to carry empathy for young men and women enduring/endured the unimaginable and unthinkable.
Good read but flawed in an unnecessary manner in my opinion. Judge for yourself and read Thirty Girls.
A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review
The book focuses on two central characters. Jane Wood an American journalist is in Uganda to do a story on the abductions and the survivors of the kidnappings by Kony's LRA, and Esther Akello, a surviving kidnapped girl of the LRA. The narrative alternates between Jane and Esther's story's.
Minot's adeptness with the narrative is well done. Her descriptions of the LRA and the despicable acts committed are appalling and emotional. Learning of what the girls endured is halting and moving. Affecting subject matter approached with deference by Minot.
Esther's character is well developed. Her story is gripping and leaves the reader gasping as well as exhausted. Esther Akello is the heart and soul of the story and remains in your thoughts.
Where the story fails for me is the character of Jane Wood. After learning more about Jane my hopes for this being a must read is quickly extinguished. Jane is lost, she is on a quest to try to find herself. Lacking self esteem and being extremely self absorbed you really find it difficult to like her, rather you find yourself tolerating her. She is a poor example of a woman, her thinking, her character and behavior, an illustration I loathe. Jane has a new 'boy toy' she has met in a matter of weeks and finds her every thought wrapped around Harry. I was disgusted by the lack of professionalism and basic human decency she demonstrated while embarking on this project. Hearing of the abuse and violence and Jane still drifts off with thoughts of Harry. Minot should have focused solely on Esther or altered Jane's character to reflect a positive light. Bottom line Jane Wood is one confused woman. Her persona feels very out of place given the magnitude of the story.
���Thoughts of Harry came in the day like reveries, then she would stop the thoughts. How could she be thinking so lightly of love, here in a place where people���s lips were cut off and girls were snatched out of their beds?���
If it wasn't for the severely flawed Jane this book was have really made more of an impact for me but as it is with Jane's poor demeanor, low self esteem and self absorption it scars the sensitive and compelling narrative, it feels like a story, a story with a character desensitized and narcissistic to carry empathy for young men and women enduring/endured the unimaginable and unthinkable.
Good read but flawed in an unnecessary manner in my opinion. Judge for yourself and read Thirty Girls.
A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review
January 11, 2014
In Thirty Girls, author Susan Minot tells the story of the Lord's Resistance Army's abduction of Ugandan girls from two perspectives. Jane is an American journalist who travels to Africa for the story and to get away from her life; Esther is a captured teenager who tells the story of her capture, escape, and recovery in the first person. The novel is based on research, including true stories, about "Kony's children". The author effectively describes the situation in the rebel camps and in Uganda.
Esther's voice is the more successful of the two. Her narrative is straight-forward and she clearly articulates her feelings. Jane's story is also straight-forward; the author describes the landscape without being overly flowery or abstract. Her character's competence is offset by the author's repeated focus on Jane's emotional dependency on her romantic companion.
One overlap that both women are trying to escape their past and figure out who they are when they are not "home". Jane says: "Knowing oneself was like smoke wafting into air. Other people could direct you to the stranger of yourself". She goes to Africa partially to discover herself; she reflects (too frequently) on how she is stuck in her head, and only released through physical connection. She feels that her character has grown by the end, but - unlike Esther's - the growth wasn't apparent to me. The children make peace with their forced lives although their identities are lost to the violation. Jane struggles with and less successfully makes peace with her freedom.
Esther's voice is the more successful of the two. Her narrative is straight-forward and she clearly articulates her feelings. Jane's story is also straight-forward; the author describes the landscape without being overly flowery or abstract. Her character's competence is offset by the author's repeated focus on Jane's emotional dependency on her romantic companion.
One overlap that both women are trying to escape their past and figure out who they are when they are not "home". Jane says: "Knowing oneself was like smoke wafting into air. Other people could direct you to the stranger of yourself". She goes to Africa partially to discover herself; she reflects (too frequently) on how she is stuck in her head, and only released through physical connection. She feels that her character has grown by the end, but - unlike Esther's - the growth wasn't apparent to me. The children make peace with their forced lives although their identities are lost to the violation. Jane struggles with and less successfully makes peace with her freedom.
April 3, 2014
I picked up this book because I was really excited to read this story. I am not that familiar with Uganda. However I thought this would be a heart wrecking story in a good way. Ok, so sometimes a story can sound good but it is all in the execution. I felt that the execution feel way down in this book. Such a disappointment.
Esther and her story is the only part that I really enjoyed about this book. This is what I felt was the whole meat of the story. It was Jane that brought this story down for me. I thought she would be a strong voice for Esther and the other girls. Instead Jane was bland and too self absorbed about her new love interest Henry. In fact, Jane annoyed me to the point that I just skipped all of her parts. In doing this I felt cheated in that I did not get a complete story but still I never missed much from skipping Jane's parts. There did not need to be a romance featured in the story.
Esther and her story is the only part that I really enjoyed about this book. This is what I felt was the whole meat of the story. It was Jane that brought this story down for me. I thought she would be a strong voice for Esther and the other girls. Instead Jane was bland and too self absorbed about her new love interest Henry. In fact, Jane annoyed me to the point that I just skipped all of her parts. In doing this I felt cheated in that I did not get a complete story but still I never missed much from skipping Jane's parts. There did not need to be a romance featured in the story.
November 22, 2014
Not an easy book, although Robin Miles does an outstanding job with the narration--an amazing range of accents and cadences. Based on the true story of young women kidnapped from a Ugandan convent school by the Lord's Resurrection Army, the novel intertwines two stories: that of Esther, a young woman captured, violated, but who escaped to a rehabilitation camp; and that of Jane, the American journalist, at loose ends in her personal life, who comes to Uganda to write about the atrocities. Their stories eventually intertwine as we learn how their lives were changed by events. A dark story, haunting and intense. Complex and character-driven. "Spellbinding," as one reviewer put it.
February 17, 2014
This book deserved a 2.5 rating. The storyline about the adducted girls in Uganda at the hands of rebels was very interesting, especially how they learned to survive the brutality. The story of the American journalist, Jane, was somewhat on the boring side. She was a self-absorbed character.
June 3, 2014
This book was terrible. I know, just like everyone else, I was angry that it was marketed as a story of abduction, but it's not. It is, however, one of the worst books that I have ever attempted to read. I don't ever leave books unfinished but this one, I did.
February 24, 2014
full review here:
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http://asthecrowefliesandreads.blogsp...
March 10, 2014
Relevant, but depressing! I wish the author had focused less on whiny Jane's problems.
August 14, 2015
Lovely story. Makes me want to travel Africa.
July 19, 2023
The titular girls are used as backdrop for a story about a naive white woman trying to decide whether to pursue a relationship with a chill younger man who doesn’t understand her aging anxieties.
Not only was the protagonist annoying for no apparent narrative reason (PLEASE stop inner monologuing about your anxieties and how bad the bad things around you are making YOU feel, and just DO ANYTHING or go home), but it felt insulting to the very real story that ran in the background. That a white woman fakes being a journalist to gain access to others’ trauma in order to explore and soothe her own feelings of sorrow that these events take place….by proposing to write a story about it someday even though she clearly has no platform or expertise or background knowledge to offer…..I sometimes couldn’t decide if this was satire? Would have preferred her character take a back seat to a greater exploration of the stolen girls, but took a quick peek at the author and thought, maybe she’s just trying to follow the ‘write what you know’ and actually wanted to stay outside of the abductees’ stories? I was confused and annoyed by this book.
Not only was the protagonist annoying for no apparent narrative reason (PLEASE stop inner monologuing about your anxieties and how bad the bad things around you are making YOU feel, and just DO ANYTHING or go home), but it felt insulting to the very real story that ran in the background. That a white woman fakes being a journalist to gain access to others’ trauma in order to explore and soothe her own feelings of sorrow that these events take place….by proposing to write a story about it someday even though she clearly has no platform or expertise or background knowledge to offer…..I sometimes couldn’t decide if this was satire? Would have preferred her character take a back seat to a greater exploration of the stolen girls, but took a quick peek at the author and thought, maybe she’s just trying to follow the ‘write what you know’ and actually wanted to stay outside of the abductees’ stories? I was confused and annoyed by this book.
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