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Reading the Ceiling
 
 
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Reading the Ceiling (Paperback)

by Dayo Forster (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £11.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (8 May 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0743295714
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743295710
  • Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 579,975 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Observer, June 3 2007
the tussle between fate and free will ... a warmly informed
portrait of modern African womanhood

Financial Times, May 4 2007
a ... complex examination of potential futures ... Forster has
written a thought-provoking series of narratives

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Reading the Ceiling, 11 May 2007
By Safi (East Africa) - See all my reviews
I loved reading this book - for me it was about sex, food and choices. I was swept along on Ayodele's alternative life journeys - the descriptions of family life, mother-daughter conflict and sister to sister relationships are familiar to us all, as are the choices she faces and the mistakes she makes. For a first novel Reading the Ceiling is pleasingly mature and 'readable', maybe a bit verbose to start with but it's worth pressing on... As the character of Ayodele and her family and friends take over, you are caught up in the currents of their lives - a coming of age book from a new author who combines passion, earthiness and dry humour. Move over Alexander McCall Smith - this really is about ordinary life in West Africa, warts and all.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A real modern African Story, 3 May 2007
This is a story about a young Gambian woman who makes choices each taking her along very different paths. For anyone from Africa who over the last 20 years has been a teenager, traveled overseas, been faced with difficult decisions on religion, marriage, family or how they fit in to a modern versus traditional culture - this book will resonate with meaning on every page. For anyone who has lived in West Africa - and especially The Gambia - this will bring back memories of food, clothes and smells. For everyone else this is simply a beautifully written book - exciting, sad and real
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Flat and Uninspiring, 13 Aug 2007
By missp85 (London) - See all my reviews
Dayo Forster's writing is lovely - simple and fuss-free, yet colorful in the way it lightly rolls along.

But the story she sets out to tell is incredibly dull.

The idea that Ayodele's life will run 3 different courses depending on which of 3/4 men she decides to sleep with, is not entirely unique or awe-inspiring in itself. As such, I expected more from the story, but found that it fell flat in many places. Especially those places where she could've pulled the reader in, and given us more insight into why exactly she set out to write the long book in the first place. Ayodele as a character is so full of spunk in her early years, and so FLAT in middle age (in all 3 scenarios) that I felt it really was the same disheartening, uninspiring story told 3 times over but with a few people, names and places changed. It dragged, and was a chore to read. I certainly wouldn't recommend it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars "A life beginning has many paths before it..."
On her eighteenth birthday, Ayodele decides, she will not only have a great party at the best disco in town, she will also choose a one-off mate to take her from childhood to... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Friederike Knabe

3.0 out of 5 stars Lovely and substantial
I was tired when I was reading this but it is so lovely I kept picking it up. I thought it a real treat - the three stories each offer a view into a different kind of a life. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ridgeway Lass

4.0 out of 5 stars Choices and Consequences
Dayo Forster has written a novel very much along the lines of the film "Sliding Doors". Largely set in the Gambia, it follows Ayodele from the night of her 18th birthday when she... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Sofia

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing
this book was beautifully written i cannot reccomend it enough, one of the best books I have read in a long time.. Read more
Published 13 months ago by S. Sawlani

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking choices
I was totally absorbed by the consequence of the choices that Ayodele made. This story reminded me of the Robert Frost poem `The road not taken'. Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2007 by Purple Daisy

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