By recounting his childhood and his youth, Wainaina also shows a glimpse into Kenya's social and political structure as he comes more and more aware of them, especially the frightening rise of tribalism which culminated in violence and deaths. It is a very intimate and personal look into a young man's life: his early years in Kenya, coming of age in South Africa, struggles to find his path. I was definitely engrossed in the book although found that it started to drag on, as though the author wasn't quite sure how to finish his story. What is remarkable, however, is the writing: full of imagery, he has a way to even describe soundscapes that are quite unique. Just for that aspect I would recommend this book. ( )

Binyavanga Wainaina tells the story of his middle-class Kenyan childhood, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. There is a lot of turmoil and trouble. He does a very good job of creating word pictures. ( )

157/2020. Interesting content but too overwritten for an enjoyable read. I didn't even need to look at the spine to guess this was published by Granta.

The author aims a pre-emptive strike at readers like me and misses by a country mile, lol: "After a couple of hours, I am starting to get uncomfortable at the levels of pleasure around me. I want to go back to my cheap motel room and read a book full of realism and stingy prose. Coetzee maybe? That will makes me a Protestant again. Naipaul. Something mean-spirited and bracing."

Content: 4
Style: 3
Average: 3.5 ( )

In a style of writing that I cannot but call absorbing, Wainaina talks about growing up in Kenya in the 70s and 80s, his addiction to fiction, about his booze- and cigarette-fueled attempts at studying in South Africa, about his early days as a writer, about his travels around the continent and the world. Over the course of his personal story, he adds in just enough politics and historical background to keep things firmly in memoir territory (as opposed to general history or international relations).

Some of the chapters were published as magazine articles before, and much of the book reads like that: a skilled writer using personal stories to talk about his world of intertribal distrust, colonial legacies, hesitant African democracies, Lagos cityscapes, Togo markets, and how to chart Kenya’s development through a succession of music styles. The best vignettes in the book, though, are the personal ones: this is where Wainaina’s less-is-more writing style does its most evocative work; his sparse sentences and carefully picked details are more artificial and less effective when it comes to more general topics.

That said, One day I will write about this place was an immersive read that I was eager to pick up and looking forward to read. I would very much like to read more by Wainaina. ( )

The first half is so slow, but getting through it is totally worth the effort. The second half almost merits the NY Times "run, don't walk, to buy this book," but overall, I think walking would be just fine. ( )

This is a memoir written in spectacularly descriptive and creative language that works best in describing scenes and the African world, less well in engaging the reader personally with the writer. ( )

A well written account of a writer coming of age in Kenya and his travels across the African continent as an adult. Wainana's prose is elegant, spare and he conveys his experiences in a series a tightly told vingettes.

However, he never really made me care enough about his life. There are worse sins in literature, but I never found myself completely absorbed by this. ( )

Really wonderful, absorbing memoir about growing up in Kenya in the 70s and 80s, being part of the first generation to be born after independence from British rule. Wainaina's prose is the real joy here, riffing on language, meandering but never rambling, often suggestive rather than direct, and only rarely getting away from itself. (This seems to happen more at the beginning of the book than later on.) I did want this to cohere a little more—it's not quite a memoir proper, but more than a series of vignettes—but was impressed enough that I will look out for more of Wainaina's work in the future. ( )

I received this as a First Reads winner and am so sorry it took me so long to read and review the book.This is a great book! The descriptions of the people and places of Africa are incredible. Several times I thought I might check Google Earth to find some of the places mentioned because I wanted to see for myself. Then I thought that the descriptions in the book were so detailed I would probably be disappointed by the Google Earth view and decided to just savor the imagery as given. ( )

It took me a while to get into this book. For the first seventy-five pages, I just could not make myself care about Wainaina's life. Fortunately, my interest in the book improved the further I read. Wainaina's young adult years provide the forefront for most of his memoir, with the movements and events in Africa during the 1970s and '80s being a fascinating backdrop. The author provides readers with a younger voice's view of the post-colonial continent and all of its competing elements: pop culture vs. Pentecostal religion, socio-political problems, tribalism, Afrocentrism and pan-Africanism, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, Western education, refugees, immigration, and more. Wainaina primarily focuses on his period of being out-of-touch with his goals, country, and, at times, family, then moves on to his eventual journey to being a writer. He ends, however, by writing just as much about recent political situations in Kenya as about himself.

Wainaina writes in what I would consider a literary style, so the writing can be lyrical and magnificent at times. I could tell that the words the author used were considered very carefully as he was writing; Wainaina's hard work shows. Every once in a while, though, I found his anecdotes to be somewhat confusing, their meanings ambiguous. I felt like more concrete memoir-writing might have been nice in these places, but all in all, this book turned out to be a wonderful read. ( )

His life pathways to becoming a writer and observations of his country.