A Book Report Named Disaster

A BOOK REPORT NAMED DISASTER

I just finished A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer. Honestly, it was not what I expected. The main story is that Nhamo, and eleven year old girl living in a traditional village in Mozambique, that is being forced to marry a man called Zororo (I can't pronounce that name, Zozorozo, Zorozo...). Her grandmother, in one final intent to get Nhamo away from the town to save her from that fate, gives her a bag of gold and tells her to go to Zimbabwe. Nhamo journeys down a river in search of Zimbabwe and her father, who is her only parent. She eventually ends up in a huge lake known as Lake Caborra Bassa. In the lake she encounters many spirits, mainly Njuzu (water spirits) and her Mother’s spirit on an Island known as the garden island. The garden island has an amazing food source, and she finds a Portugese spirit who gives her a Panga (hunting knife). Later, in search of land she end up on ANOTHER island, breaks her boat, and lives for months on the island. Eventually she sails to the coast, where she finds a town at the border. She gets smuggled into Zimbabwe and ends up Working/Living in a research hospital. She eventually finds her relatives in Zimbabwe, only to find that her father is long dead…

     A Girl Named Disaster is a widely spiritual book, dipping in and out of Shona religion. Nhamo’s fears and hopes are well directed as to make the audience feel part of the book. The book is well written, it uses not too complicated language mixed with Mozambican. Unfortunately the book becomes difficult to understand at certain points, and the beginning is too dull to really get me hooked. Other than that, I have to say it is a very good book.

This book is set in mostly Lake Caborra Bassa, Closely followed by Nhamo’s home town, and also The Research hospital. It seems to be present tense, but it is hard to tell. I largely expected it to be Sci-Fi due to the other books I have read by Nancy Farmer. 

A Girl Named Disaster’s characters are weird. Being mostly spirits, this book’s choice of characters is something I have never really seen. Nhamo is definitely the main character, with her mother’s spirit, and a spirit boatman called Crocodile Guts being secondary. The Njuzu are strange characters to describe, they are not evil nor good. They have strange roles, they both help Nhamo and put obstacles in her way. I think they are side characters.

There are also a lot of other characters like:

Nhamo’s Aunt

Nhamo’s Sister Matsiva

Nhamo’s Grandmother

Rumpy the baboon

Fat Cheeks the baboon

All the other baboons

Nhamo’s dead father

Long Teats The Witch

and a large selection of spirits.

My final verdict on this book is as follows:

It is difficult to get hooked into, but is difficult to put down near the end.  The characters and story are interesting. The ending is unexpected, and it left me wanting a sequel (A Girl Previously Named Disaster?) All and all, I would give this:

6/10