Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Hi Guys!

It feels like I haven't done a book review in FOREVER so today, I will be reviewing for you!!! I had to read this book for English and I really liked it and recommend it to anybody looking for a slow but good read.

Genre: Historical Fiction (1960's)

Age: 13+
Content Rating: PG 13, for ideas and themes expressed even though it is a totally clean book.
My Rating: ****

(summary from the back of the book)

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 post-colonial Africa.

The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. 

I really enjoyed this book because:

A. It's entertaining without being cheesy.
B. It's a new take on a plot that is the base of every chick-lit ever written.

I love it because it has all the parts of a chick-lit (love with an obstacle, sisters trying to be better than each other, adaptations to awkward situations) but Kingsolver approaches it totally differently than one would expect. I have what some may call an obsession with historical fiction and the fact that this book brought historical fiction and modern day ideas into one book, is absolutely genius. I would highly recommend this to anybody.