baking cakes in Kigali.

This book was an easy read, had an endearing intention, and was just interesting enough to continue reading without struggle or boredom.

But I didn't like it.

I want to say the book was poorly written, but I hesitate to do so because the entire time, it really just felt like the book was awkwardly translated from another language or was maybe trying to uphold the way that people talk in African cultures. However, there is no note of a translator and the diction of the dialogue was the same amongst African, Indian, English, and American characters. So I'm not quite sure what to think.

Anyway, the story, like I said, is an endearing one. Angel Tungaraza is a Tanzanian grandmother living in Rwanda and making a decent business baking and designing beautiful and popular cakes. She and her husband lost both their children and are raising their five grandchildren. The way that Americans are known to gossip with their hairstylists, the people in Kigali all confide in Angel with their secrets, their fears, their sad stories, and their hopes and dreams. Angel is, in a sense, a grandmother to everyone. She believes in being a "professional somebody" and upholding the utmost confidentiality, but she also uses the information she knows to find people jobs, to play matchmaker, to elicit money from the community in order to throw together a wedding for a girl with no family, and to resolve misunderstanding between different people in her compound. Throughout the process, she, in turn, finally resolves her own personal conflict that she has been avoiding for years regarding the death of her daughter, Vinas.

It's a good story to maybe tell someone about rather than having them read it themselves. I loved the cultural insight in the book - we saw perspectives on homosexuality, female mutilation, marriage practices, family displacements as a result of the war, and more. Unfortunately, these topics were not touched upon in enough depth (at times, they popped up unnaturally and awkwardly) and I wish they had been more heavily a part of the story.

In other words, if you want to know more about this book, just ask me about it. But spend your time reading something else.