A review by torihoo
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

3.0

I found this book a little hard-going until I got about halfway through, at which point the narrative seemed to solidify into a true war story in the best sense. I've seen other reviewers say that it feels mythic and, for the second half of the book, that's exactly the way I would describe it. It felt like I was reading a rendering of what would be to Ethiopia what the Iliad was to ancient Greece. Before reading this book, I knew nothing of the fascist Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Once again, an example of how white- and Western-centric our educations are in the U.S.