Book: Place of Cool Waters

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Author: Ndirangu Githaiga

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Thank you NetGalley and Bon Esprit Books for an advanced audio copy.

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Place of Cool Waters was an interesting book that mostly comes together in the end. The plot follows two young men in different parts of the world. Jude in Washington state and Qadir in Africa.

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Jude was adopted and had a good life filled with great memories. He experienced a lot of loss with his father having a stroke and his friend Connor passing away. With that, he decided to go to Africa to see a grave of a famous scout his father would talk about. It’s here where Jude meets Qadir and the story starts to come together more.

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The first half of the book through Jude’s eyes was very well written and had a lot of difficult topics such as race and death. It was all handled well through the great writing. Unfortunately, these parts felt almost like small vignettes instead of being part of a larger story.

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Once Jude is in Africa the story feels more cohesive and flowed a lot better. I really loved the friendships Jude was able to make in such a short amount of time and the “praying mother” was something that hit very hard. I don’t want to give more detail on that so it can be experienced in the story but it was a wonderful part.

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The narration by Lee Goetti was fantastic. He speaks clearly and does more than just read a story to you. His voice sounded familiar and I discovered I listened to another book he narrated. In that book I also credited him for excellent narration.

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Final score 3/5