"This incantatory novel is a dialogue between a freedom-seeking daughter and her traditionalist father. For Adua, the bonds of love prove as constraining as any legal system bent on controlling outsiders. As a child, she believed Italy was freedom. As a black woman, she is forced to reconsider. Yet Rome offered refuge during Somalia’s civil conflict and the space to contemplate returning once it eased. Adopted homes may not give themselves fully, Scego seems to suggest, but they powerfully clarify what has been lost."

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The Boston Globe