She Would Be King
Wayetu Moore
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
She Would Be King
Wayetu Moore
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Reading Wayétu Moore’s debut novel, She Would Be King...feels a lot like watching a superb athlete’s performance.
The Liberian-American writer’s debut novel is a Marvelesque national epic about Liberia’s independence centered on three supernaturally gifted misfits.
Moore’s vivid characters, beguiling language and powerful subject matter engage us thoroughly. The book is unforgettable.
...[a] compelling debut novel.
Wayétu Moore’s debut novel is more than an imagining of Liberia’s mid-1800s beginnings; it is a magical account of ongoing, individual and collective independence from oppressive forces.
Wayétu Moore does something quite astonishing in She Would Be King, a novel that is awash in poetry, ancestry and hints of what might be called magic, but decidedly rooted in the brutality of history. Composed and compelling, brimming with devastating truths and sparkling with ferocity, this is a masterpiece of a debut. Moore's voice is at once vibrantly original and steeped in lineage.
Wayétu Moore's debut novel, She Would Be King, is an astonishing feat of storytelling. Moore leads readers through an expansive and magical retelling of Liberia's cultural and social history. Throughout she challenges the historical record to demonstrate fallibility as the nation both resisted and supported oppression and marginalization of its own people. Likewise, her characters are antiheroes whose errors only develop their fortitude.
In this ambitious novel, Moore artfully and lovingly uses her protagonists to explore exile, belonging, resilience, relationships, loss, and freedom amidst the larger context of the African Diaspora.
Wayétu Moore's She Would Be King was just such a pleasant surprise for me—and a powerful, politically necessary one in the era of #BlackLivesMatter and the continued plundering of Africa's wealth.
While the subject matter of Moore’s novel is certainly focused on humanity, specifically the lack of humanity shown by white people to black people down through the centuries, it is a stretch to say her novel dazzles with anything close to transcendence. The problem lies less in the genre mixing – Moore is an inventive writer who makes good use of African myth – but in the language, which is for the most part functional and forgettable, and eventually struggles to hold up the weight of all the subplots.
Moore uses an accomplished, penetrating style—with clever swerves into fantasy—to build effective critiques of tribal misogyny, colonial abuse, and racism..
Moore is a brisk and skilled storyteller who weaves her protagonists' disparate stories together with aplomb yet is also able to render her sprawling cast of characters in ways that feel psychologically compelling. In addition, the novel's various settings—Virginia, Jamaica, and West Africa—are depicted so lushly that readers will find themselves enchanted. Unfortunately, getting these characters' stories to intersect at the back end of the book requires a level of narrative contrivance that sends the tale careening out of myth and into the realm of clumsiness. A sweeping and entertaining novel encumbered by an unwieldy plot..
... a lot of voice-shifting, but Moore’s voice steadies when describing Gbessa’s ordeals.