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“This true of story of survival is told in a tender and aching style by narrator Robin Miles. She captures the wonder, pain, and confusion of two sisters…Her honest, bracing tone captures the disillusionment of childhood tragedy and the magnitude of loss. We are swept back and forth from the past to the present—the violence in Kigali jangles with the scene of the sisters being welcomed on the Oprah show. Miles shows her artistry as a performer by handling these contrasts with precision. Listen to this with a box of tissues nearby—you’ll need them.”
— AudioFile
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Winner of the 2019 ALA/YALSA Alex Award
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A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018A Glamour Best Book of 2018A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018A Real Simple Best Book of 2018
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Sharp, moving... Wamariya and her co-author, Elizabeth Weil... describe Wamariya’s idyllic early childhood in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, and the madness that followed with an analytic eye and, at times, a lyrical honesty.... Wamariya is piercing about her alienation in America and her effort to combat the perception that she is an exotic figure, to be pitied or dismissed.... Wamariya tells her own story with feeling, in vivid prose. She has remade herself, as she explains was necessary to do, on her own terms.
— Alexis Okeowo, New York Times Book Review
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Like Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, on being a boy soldier in Sierra Leone, or Joseph Kim’s Under the Same Sky, on escaping North Korea, The Girl Who Smiled Beads is at once terrifying and life-affirming. And like those memoirs, it painstakingly describes the human cost of war.
— Washington Post
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Remarkable... Wamariya and the journalist Elizabeth Weil set out to sabotage facile uplift.... The fractured form of her own narrative—deftling toggling between her African and American odysseys—gives troubled memory its dark due.
— Ann Hulbert, The Atlantic
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Wamariya’s memoir proves how the human spirit can triumph. It truly floored me.
— Elisabeth Egan, Glamour
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Unforgettable.
— People
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"Gripping.... It is our human tragedy that there will always be war, and that there will always be displaced people. Memoirs that show exactly what that means, exactly what the toll is, are vital.
— The Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Wamariya (along with Outside contributor Elizabeth Weil) tells... her story—which, yes, is often extremely tough—with brilliance.
— Outside
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Heartbreaking and honest, this important memoir explores the lasting effects that trauma and destruction have on an individual and emphasizes the human ability to overcome it all and build a new future—even when that new life comes with horrors of its own.
— Real Simple
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This book is not a conventional story about war and its aftermath; it’s a powerful coming-of-age story in which a girl explores her identity in the wake of a brutal war that destroyed her family and home. Wamariya is an exceptional narrator and her story is unforgettable.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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At once heart-breaking and hopeful, [Wamariya's] story is about power and helplessness, loneliness and identity, and the strange juxtaposition of poverty and privilege.... This beautifully written and touching account goes beyond the horror of war to recall the lived experience of a child trying to make sense of violence and strife. Intimate and lyrical, the narrative flows from Wamariya’s early experience to her life in the United States with equal grace. A must-read.
— Library Journal (starred review)
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In this eloquent and engaging memoir, Clemantine Wamariya recalls a childhood spent as a refugee on the run from war, violence, and terror, and a womanhood shaped by those experiences. Affecting and utterly eye-opening, The Girl Who Smiled Beads is a powerful reminder of just how strong and indomitable the human spirit can be.
— Bustle
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Riveting... [A] poetically written, searchingly honest memoir.
— National Catholic Reporter
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Lyrical and hauntingly beautiful. The Girl Who Smiled Beads will inspire you.
— Chanrithy Him, author of When Broken Glass Floats
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A powerful record of the refugee experience... [with] moments of potent self-reckoning.
— Kirkus Reviews
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In her prose as in her life, Wamariya is brave, intelligent, and generous. Sliding easily between past and present, this memoir is a soulful, searing story about how families survive.
— Booklist
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“Extraordinary and heart-rending. Wamariya is as fiercely talented as she is courageous.”
— Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author