Half of a Yellow Sun: A Novel

History comes alive!

I quickly became attached to the complex characters of this novel. I felt I was an intimate witness to their life struggles, traumas and transformations. In the process, I learned about a painful chapter in the history of Biafra/Nigeria. At the centre, the story is about the writing of a book, which examines the complicity of the world community in these terrible events and suggests that personal relationships are intricately tied to international relations.

Robin Miles performed the characters accents beautifully.

Chimananda Ngozi Adichi has written a masterful work of historical fiction. I look forward to reading more of her novels.

Beautiful, ugly, horrifying and to be permanently etched in your head. Should be mandatory for every white person, especially if you've ever thought that something going on too far away from your own world can be scary for just a minute but forgotten before your next meal. Robin Miles does some sort of magic with her reading of this book and the author is to be praised for the amazing job of being able to write something so real. I can't remember the last time I was this impressed with a book.

I was enthralled by the complex characters and quickly drawn into their lives and how the war affected them before it began, during and after. How I had quickly fallen in love with the strong headed sister who becomes my hero.
I have read this book twice and will happily read it again. From an educational point of view I also learnt a lot about a war I heard of but knew little about.
A great, great read narrated by the wonderful Robin Miles

It was time well spent but I found myself easily distracted and not able to pay attention to the story line.

Never finished

Her voice has a wonderful warmth.

I actually bought this book because I was so impressed with Robin Miles' reading of The Warmth of Other Suns. I had heard good things about Adichie, so it seemed like a good fit. Miles continues to impress. The only drawback of the audiobook is that the book has a strange structure - midway through it has an odd chronological jump that perhaps would make more sense in the print version.

As the characters were being introduced, I kept trying to anticipate their fatal flaws, the thing about them that would lead them to wrong others or some other tragedy. But Adichie masterfully both evokes and evades such stock character tricks. In the end, this is a book without villains (which are my favorite kind). It's a book not about minor cruelties, but about a world gone mad and the way people come together to endure atrocities.

As mentioned above, I love Robin Miles and would like to listen to more of her work. She handles changes in gender, class and regional accent well, making each character distinctly memorable. In the other book, The Warmth of Other Suns, she does marvelous things with American accents. In this book, she does Nigerian and British, as well as speaking occasional Igbo.

This story could not be told in film format. It would end up trite and moralistic, which is precisely the opposite of what makes Adichie's writing so good.

THE "GONE WITH THE WIND" OF THE AFRICAN EXPERIENCE. AN UNFORGETABLE STORY OF CIVIL WAR AND THE STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE AND HOLD ONTO A WAY OF LIFE.

its a chapter in history that need to be known. unforgettable story and characters/

draws you right each character, each compelling and unique,as if they were in your own room

disturbing history but compelling, satisfying and deeply engrossing listen

This beautiful and sad book provided me with an insight into the Biafran/Nigeran war that I was previously ignorant of. The narrator is wonderful - I have listened to many books by her and she is consistantly excellant.

The characters are developed slowly but gradually you gain an insight into their personalities and emotions. The descriptions of the war are heart rendering. I became very attached to the main characters and actually cried at the end of the book.

Highly recommended

This book is recorded out of sequence. Earlier parts of the plot are in the second download. later parts are in the earlier download. This really messes up the experience of listening.

While this story was set during the war in Nigeria, it had more to do with the characters and their relationships with each other. I was hesitant to listen after reading some of the other reviews. This is not a quick story with something constantly happening or a lot of drama. The author kind of stays in a moment. However, ,I really loved this audiobook. It was very realistic...not sugarcoating the bad or over dramitizing. The more I listened, the more the Nigerian civil war sounded so much like any other civil war and the responses and behavior of the people the same of anyone else put in the same situation. It really illustrated, to me, how very similar we all are in our humanity, no matter our culture or country.