Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel ReviewI picked up this book anticipating it would be the story of a tribal cakebaker and was pleasantly surprised to find it was set in modern day Rwanda, in a culture dealing with the restoration of the mess left behind by the horrors of genocide and struggling with the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. It is the story of a professor's wife in an apartment complex; a woman who is wise and compassionate, who hears stories and teaches lessons gained in her 50 years of living in an educated culture. She interacts with a variety of people: diplomats, prostitutes, single mothers, soldiers, neighbors; all needing cakes as their common thread, but all arriving at her doorstep with a different story. Many of their personal lives have been impacted by the war and it is shocking to realize what kinds of things people did to survive. Sure it touches on the typical womens issues: rape, abuse, prostitution, single parenting, even cutting. We don't think about the individual aspects and the personal stories of war and AIDS until they touch us personally. She too, has felt the impact as she is raising her children's children, as all were victims, and we watch her come to grips with that. She is a very real character, a great role model for older women in an enjoyable book.Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel Overview

Want to learn more information about Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World ReviewI really wanted to love this book. I've been a big fan of Jacqueline Novogratz ever since I started reading about the Acumen Fund's work while serving in the Peace Corps in central Africa. In the years since, I've been working for a global health organization in several countries and read up on developments in this field regularly - and like Novogratz, I'm a UVA grad! And getting my MBA! I thought I'd eat this book up.
What first struck me was that this book is much less about the developing world (to say nothing of the Acumen Fund) than it is about Novogratz herself. The author is not a gifted writer, as others have pointed out, and the constant attempts at vivid descriptions of scenes of Africa and India become very tiresome. They also lend to the strong theme of the author's utter naivete. Novogratz seems to be constantly shocked or surprised when something she tries doesn't work, and nevertheless repeats the same self-sure pattern of presumption on her next "project."
I was an innocent abroad once too. The developing world, especially Africa, has a steep learning curve... but it's one that the author, from her luxury accommodations in the capital, jet-setting between countries as an overpaid ADB "consultant," hobnobbing with expat (read: white) elites in tennis clubs and fancy restaurants where local Kenyans/Rwandans/Tanzanians/etc. are nonexistent, never seems to overcome. She's exactly the type of foreign "expert" which she skewers early in the book (and whom exasperates the rest of us in this field). My eyes became sore from so much rolling, hearing her wax eloquent about local people and cultures to which she clearly has little true exposure or understanding of.
I give it two stars because many of the lessons she discusses - about accountability, the power of business in bettering people's lives, instilling a sense of dignity through economic security - are sound. I just wish she would talk more about business and less about, say, how shocked - just shocked! - she was when she was mugged while jogging alone in Tanzania, or about how she feels about the Rwandan genocide.The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Overview

Want to learn more information about The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...