The Poisonwood Bible was my kind of Southern Gothic fiction, but instead of being set in the American South, it was set in the Belgian Congo. This is exactly what I want from an award-winning novel! I was hooked immediately by the author's authentic southern voice and the way she expertly molded and shaped the four Price girls and their mother. And the plot is riveting-not a page-turner as such, but I was fully engaged in it-as it zeroes in on the complex moral question that is the backbone of the book: Do white people - no matter how well meaning - have any right at all to invade a culture and attempt to change it? And what are the long-term ramifications of such audacity? The detailed descriptions of the Congo are so remarkably realistic that I felt as if I were transported there along with the Price family. This is an intelligent, multilayered novel with vividly drawn characters that are so real they pop off the page.

And each of girls' perspectives of the same life they are living is absolutely riveting-sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and always poignant. Once you get into the book, you will know just by reading the first paragraph of a chapter who has written it without even looking at the chapter heading.

One of the things that makes this book such an imaginative work of genius is the distinct voice Kingsolver gives each of the girls. Each of the other chapters is written in the first person by one of the four daughters. Except for the last section, the first part of each is written by Orleanna looking back on their time in the Congo. Great tragedy strikes, and the lives of all six of the Prices radically change forever. Assimilating-from learning to cook on a wood stove to having to haul water for a mile-is a Herculean adjustment. To say they are wholly unprepared for such a primitive lifestyle is an understatement. He brings with him his Bible, his arrogant, holier-than-thou approach to saving souls, and his reluctant family: his obedient, meek wife Orleanna and teenage daughters Rachel, Leah, and Adah along with five-year-old Ruth May. This masterpiece by Barbara Kingsolver takes us deep into the jungle of the Congo beginning in 1959 when Southern Baptist preacher Nathan Price embarks on a risky missionary post in small village located on a smelly, crocodile-infested river on the edge of a lush, snake-infested jungle. And then when you're going about the business of life, you'll find yourself thinking, 'When can I stop what I'm doing and read again?' As in, it starts out just fine - OK, but not fabulous - and then bit by bit it sneaks its way into your heart and soul.

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