Mythical, Mysterious, and Miraculously Beautiful

The mythical and mysterious tone of the book is astounding. The story focuses on beautiful, fantastical language that emphasizes both the cruelty and curiosity of life. It appears to serve as an allegory for generational trauma and dealing with the shadows of a group’s past. It asks questions of how to deal with these cultural wounds and what to do with them. The book is written like a game of Telephone, and the world seems to be reliant on this game of Telephone as well. This exemplifies how history adapts and changes as we tell it. Since Yetu, the protagonist, is the one who has to learn the history from the past, in some aspects she cannot grasps it all because of the pain it provides and how she has to interpret it. In real life, our history can sometimes be painful and even confusing and as we tell stories to pass on these ideas, sometimes they change.