Half of a Yellow Sun

I was affected more by the large-scale tragedy than by any of the personal suffering of the main characters. The final personal loss did not hit me very hard because I was already numbed by the descriptions of the horrors happening to secondary and background characters, like the beheaded servant, or the malnourished children.

Throughout, I had the sense that the main characters were a bit contrived to be in an optimal position to cover all aspects of the war. For example, Olanna happens to have an ex from the north, who ends up on the opposite side of the war.

The Part 3 section was particularly jarring, an extended flashback focusing on soap opera-like subplots, which interrupts the story of the war.

All in all, despite the flaws in characterization, it was still a powerful account of a period of history that I was ignorant about.