Reviews

Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe

kelseak96's review against another edition

dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

sam_fielder_137's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

I don't have a single clue what this book was even about. There were entire pages of text that were entirely undeciferable because of the way the author chose to write the characters' accents. Even the stuff I could understand was confusing, wordy, or both. Nothing felt like it actually mattered due to the complete lack of emotional depth of all characters (as far as I could tell).

jeanajen2024's review against another edition

1.0

I just could not get into this book. I gave it almost 60 pages and my interest was just not piqued.

hazioli's review against another edition

4.25

An incredibly well written book. The story alone is masterful - but the way Achebe crafts his chapters, chooses his use of language, and writes through the eyes of very different characters brings a very well done feeling of being right in the middle of something as big as a whole country.

At times his choice of language to depict women felt reductive but very rarely did this come outside of a chapter or a POV by a man who viewed her in that way - and the chapters written from Beatrice’s POV (as well as being some of the best) had such a stark change in language that showed the consideration of the author. This can’t be said for all male writers discussing political change or oppression.

And now the times had come round again out of story-land. Perhaps not as bad as the first times, yet. But they could easily end worse. Why? Because today no one can rise and march south by starlight abandoning crippled kindred in the wild savannah and arrive stealthily at a tiny village and fall upon its inhabitants and slay them and take their land and say: I did it because death stared through my eye. 
So they send instead a deputation of elders to the government who hold the yam today, and hold the knife, to seek help of them.

marlo42's review against another edition

I read this too slowly to really give it a fair rating, but I'll include my thoughts below anyway:
This is good. I enjoyed a lot of this-there's brief moments where the prose is poignant, and the book really picks up towards the last third.
However, the setup feels like it takes a little too long, and the characters feel more like poles used to prop up a story than real people. I enjoyed this, and might enjoy it more on a reread, but I'm not crazy about it. I'll probably need to read more about Achebe and his work before I read anything else by him.

si_hui_olive's review against another edition

4.0

High level, vivid

oli_chip's review against another edition

funny hopeful reflective sad

5.0

zajtrajsok's review against another edition

3.5

• Confusing time jumps and POV shifts. It took me a while to get used to them.
• I'm not gonna lie, I had to look up a lot Nigerian Pidgin English words to make sense of some dialogues. That's not really a complaint, though.
• The ending! I have hoped for a happy ending, but that's not how it works in the real world. Some say the book's ending is hopeful, even optimistic, but I just feel like it implies that history will keep repeating itself again and again, which I guess is true.
• I'm sure that many references and connections flew right over my head, since I know very little about politics and history, but it was still an interesting read that gave me some insight into Nigeria and other African countries. 

hollyhowell's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

chikamma's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0