When the Mapou Sings by Nadine Pinede is a romantic telling of a young girl learning her real place in the world through a perhaps lesser-known piece of history. A bit fanciful at times, and the ending a bit too convenient, but overall well done. A solid 3.5 for the rating and I will be looking for more by this author, but that might be awhile as this is their debut prose poetry novel.
Lucilles’s (the narrator and heroine of our story) journey seems as if it is true to life, but the thoughts and some language are more modern sounding. This helps with the fact that names and places are unfamiliar to most Western readers, especially kids and teens. Also, the native language and some French are mixed into the text without always an easy translation given. The prose poetry allows for a fairly quick read, yet sometimes parts will drag on, mostly because the story arc is longer than other areas with more description, or just more attention given. Sometimes these areas feel needed and sometimes maybe could have been paired down. But then we’ll have a section that goes too fast and you feel as if you are missing parts. Still, the story is unique, interesting and the mix of fiction and historical makes for a thoughtful read.
There are a few things that are potential triggers: talk of rape, the treatment of women, treatment of local people, goverment corruption, and other sexual content, without being overly graphic, yet allowing you to know what is happening, could happen and hashappened to the character, such as talk of making babies, loss of pregnancy, and how a woman’s part in this (either her duty or seductress). We deal with the Catholic Church (mostly positively, but of course, we know their track record) and how they would influence the main characters.).
