Two novels in one book
3 stars
The People Of Ostrich Mountain starts out as an interesting and inspiring historical fiction novel. I listened to the audiobook edition and while I did get some amusement from the narrator's early allegedly-Scottish accent rolling around most of the Celtic nations, I thought his narration overall was well done. I liked this story's central character, Wambũi, and the way in which Ndirangu Githaiga depicts both her family life and the differences she encounters in an esteemed boarding school far from her home. Wambũi is a maths genius, but is also a pragmatic girl with a strong, quiet determination. I loved how she manages to find the best life for herself despite this not necessarily being what other people had hoped for her.
I was, however, surprised by the abrupt way in which Wambũi's story was dropped in favour of following her son, Raymond, and his attempts to qualify as a …
The People Of Ostrich Mountain starts out as an interesting and inspiring historical fiction novel. I listened to the audiobook edition and while I did get some amusement from the narrator's early allegedly-Scottish accent rolling around most of the Celtic nations, I thought his narration overall was well done. I liked this story's central character, Wambũi, and the way in which Ndirangu Githaiga depicts both her family life and the differences she encounters in an esteemed boarding school far from her home. Wambũi is a maths genius, but is also a pragmatic girl with a strong, quiet determination. I loved how she manages to find the best life for herself despite this not necessarily being what other people had hoped for her.
I was, however, surprised by the abrupt way in which Wambũi's story was dropped in favour of following her son, Raymond, and his attempts to qualify as a doctor in America. I felt as though the novel began to lose its direction at this point. I would have preferred to stay with Wambũi as I thought her narrative was the stronger of the two and I had invested time in getting to know her. Suddenly there was a new set of strangers with whom I felt no connection. Githaiga also does tend to drop too much at once in the way of background information for each newly introduced character. I had not found this to be as much of a problem in the first section of the novel though as it became now. There are also long scenes of unnecessary medical terminology and detail which slow the story down even more. I understand that Githaiga himself is a doctor and, while his expertise certainly shows through in those chapters, I didn't think the change in style fitted well within the novel, so much so that it was a relief to eventually get back to Wambũi despite having missed out on years of her life.
Overall I thought that The People Of Ostrich Mountain was actually two distinct stories which, other than the family relationship between their central characters, didn't really connect too well. I wondered if this single book might have worked more successfully as two separate novels. Some parts I really enjoyed whereas as others didn't work so well for me.