Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Book: 63/150

Rating: 3.5/5

Summary: The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

Thoughts: This book took me by surprise. I read it for a buddy read (basically a virtual book club), and I wouldn't have finished the book if it weren't for that.

It is definitely a slow burn: it took me about 200 pages to really get into it. I paced myself and it was my goal to read 50 pages a day until I finished it (for someone who loves to check stuff off her to do list, this is a great way to tackle a book, especially a bigger one). For me, it was hard to differentiate all of the sisters (who were the narrators), but once you really got to know them and got a feel for their personalities it was easier to read. There were some funny moments, that I wasn’t expecting, mainly due to the sisters' naiveté, and their characters are some that I think are going to stick with me in a while. I'm glad I stuck with it, I ended up enjoying it!