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Running The Rift (2010)

by Naomi Benaron(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1616200421 (ISBN13: 9781616200428)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

review 1: I rate this 5 stars as the author provides a fictional account of a male Rwandan Tutsi youth who wants to be an 800m Olympic runner covering the period leading up to and after the Rwandan genocide. So the story required a heap of research on a variety of topics covering race, culture, military arms, athletic training, religion within the historical facts of the Rwandan nation. The melding of these aspects, the combination of a love story and a plot that simmers to the known outcome makes this a great story of a truly tragic tale.
review 2: It is a difficult feat well accomplished to write an interesting well told tale based on a true story of genocide. Benaron has more than accomplished the task. Her necessarily naive hero, Jean Patrick and his family and ... morefriends make the horrific true facts of the tragedy in Rwanda very real through this fictional account. Jean Patrick and his Olympic dreams, his love for Bea and his clear affection for his friends makes the inevitable seem inconceivable. His Uncle and brother Roger understand more clearly the history of Rwanda and past Hutu-Tutsi clashes, but Jean-Patrick does not heed their dire predictions and out right warnings of what is to come. The book is a well written story of a country told through complex relationships between very likeable, believable characters. Most of the book is set before the genocide. This fact allows the story to be bittersweet and tolerable. This fictional account caused me to seek out non-fiction about the genocide in part because I liked these characters so much that I wanted a greater understanding of Rwandans and their history. Until now, the genocide was a subject I avoided as unpleasant and far away so why dwell on it. The suffering of the Tutsis while the world did nothing is a story that, like the Holocaust, must be told. I disagree with the perjorative "young adult" label that some reviewers have placed on this book. less

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