Aside from Kadi, a character written to tug at our heartstrings, which woman held the most appeal for you?
I liked Chia because she had a good heart and looked beyond her privilege and accepted Kadi into her world.
I really liked Omelogor. She was tough and seemed better able to pick her own path than the others. She was able to compete and be very successful in the shadowy banking world, and then used her illegally got gains to fund struggling women. When she tired of her very lucrative profession, she quit to explore other avenues. She wasn’t as swayed by the norms imposed upon women as were the others. I liked her spirit.
I too liked Omeglor. She was confident, had a good head on her shoulder, and while “dreaming” of a man in her life, she also was wise enough to know her life could be fulfilled without one.
I liked Chia, just because her relationships with men struck many chords with me.
I was drawn to Zikora when she had the strength to have a baby as a single woman (although unplanned).
I really liked the character Chimaka the best. Her story felt the most intimate and interesting… I could really understand her dilemmas and conflicts about her writing.
Not Chia or Omelogor! LOL! I felt for Zikora. Her section opens with the sentences, “All through the night, her mother sat near her but never touched her. In the airless hospital room, they were mostly silent.” I could feel the detachment that existed between them, and it made me sad.
Omelogor! Though when we first “met” her through Chia’s eyes, I did not expect to like her as I came to do in “her” part of the novel. She is not consistently a “good” person, but she isn’t happy with lying to herself, and she tries to make up for the seedy side of her success by being generous in ways that feel right and personal to her. She has wit and guts, and is perceptive. She can be outspoken but she doesn’t pick fights. She strives to learn, to grow, to reflect on her life, taking responsibility for it.
In the end I think I most liked Omelogor although Chia is a close second. I felt the section on Omelogor was so beautifully written, capturing so many dichotomies in her life. Interesting that with Chia and Omelogor the author uses the first person singular.
I was drawn to the sorry of Omelogor. She was strong, independent, competitive and successful. She worked in the bank work, stole money, manipulated it for higher interests risks, transferred it to redistribute to the poor. The only request was “to help another woman.” Like the other characters, she had issues with men but was not overpowered by them. Interesting: Chia and Omelogor were the only two characters where the author use the first person singular.
Omelogor. I like women who are outspoken and do not put up with nonsense with men. I loved her posts to them though, because she really did have compassion for the ways their upbringing had limited them. I also loved the way she could easily manipulate men who are driven by their bloated – and fragile! – egos.