A big thank you to the author Remy Ngamije, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my candid review.

This book was written by a new voice out of Africa. It was at times poignant, funny, and cringe worthy. Just about everything a parent would feel when their child is journeying towards adulthood. It is the story of a young black Rwandan boy, who fled Rwanda in the middle of the night with his family after the government was overthrown. They became refugees in Nigeria, which is tantamount to being a third class citizen. He eventually earns a scholarship to University in Cape Town South Africa, and begins to turn away from his family. This is an excellent coming of age story told with wit and empathy. I really enjoyed it.

"Life is not hard in Windhoek, but it is not easy, either. The poor are either falling behind or falling pregnant. The rich refuse to send the elevator back down when they reach the top. And since cities require a sturdy foundation of tolerated inequalities, Windhoek is like many other big places in the world. It is a haven for more, but a place of less. If you are not politically connected or from old white money, then the best thing to be is a tourist. The city and the country fawn over tourists. The country's economy does, too. That is when it is not digging itself poor.
That is Windhoek. The best thing to do in the city is arrive and leave."

And now, raise your hand if you find yourself wondering where Windhoek is. Don’t be shy. You’ll have plenty of company…ah. Yes. I applaud your bravery, being the first. And you, and you…and you in the back. Anyone else? That’s what I thought. Look around. Almost all of you. So now, I’ll relieve your discomfort and tell you, it’s in Namibia. Our protagonist, Seraphim, and his family must relocate there during the upheaval in their native Rwanda. This is his story, told in the first person.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Gallery Books for the review copy. This book is available to the public now.

Seraphim’s parents are strivers, working industriously to ensure that he and his siblings will have excellent educations and better lives. As a young man, he works hard and is fiercely competitive in school, but once he is at university in Cape Town, he becomes a party animal, using Cliffs Notes to dodge the assigned reading and embarking on booze fueled, all night romps. Ultimately, this is a coming of age story in a different time and place than that which most Western readers are accustomed to. And oh, my friend, if you are going to spread your wings and stretch your global literacy just a teensy bit, then this is one painless way to do it.

Once he’s inside South Africa, Sera deals with Apartheid, and during the course of his education, is advised by a wise friend, who tells him that if you want decent notes, you must befriend BWGs. These are Benevolent White Girls, and they seem to know some sort of educational code that young Black men have somehow been shut out of. There’s a funny passage about how to tell if a Caucasian is the sort one can hang out with, and to explain the difference in his own social class growing up, in contrast to others in his social group, he describes a problem with desks. There are fifty children in the class, he says, and not everyone can have a desk. Little Sera gets busy, and eventually is able to rise from chair number 50, to chair number three. Then, after a struggle with Gina and Hasham, the first and second place students, he rises to the first chair, first desk. When a friend asks what became of Gina and Hasham, Sera shrugs with his characteristic cocky arrogance, and he tells him, “I like to think they married and had second and third place children.”

Part of what I love is the way the voice here sounds like young men in their late teens and early twenties, here, there, or probably just about anywhere. In my experience, this demographic is the most hilarious of any in real life, and it comes shining through here, full of irreverent wit.

The narrative isn’t linear, and there’s some creative jumping around that, when combined with the internal discussions the narrator calls “The Council of the Seraphims,” can be difficult to keep up with. Don’t try to read the second half of this novel after you’ve taken your sleeping pill.

All told, this is a brainy, hilarious work, which is perhaps why Ngamije is being compared to Chabon and Zadie Smith. He resembles neither, apart from being very literate and extremely funny. In fact, this book is worth reading just for the snarky texts sent by Sera and his friends; their handles crack me up even before I see what they have to say.

Highly recommended, even at full price.

The Eternal Audience of One features great writing and super intriguing characters. I loved the use of nonlinear style, and how this nonlinear storytelling choice means that we, as readers, never get too comfortable with the circumstances. I was kept on my toes throughout the entirety of this novel and was emotionally invested in the outcomes befalling the characters.

I’m just so bored. I have no idea where the story (honestly, what story?) is going and I have no interest in finding it out. I don’t feel connected to the characters. This just feels like a weird assortment of random anecdotes mushed together in no particular order with no particular theme. DNF.

An interesting book, engrossing at times, slow moving at other times. Seraphin is in his last year of law school in Cape Town, South Africa. Originally from Rwanda, he and his family escaped while bullets were flying and violence was all around them. Moving to Namibia, the family tries to adjust and make it their home. The parts of the book that are about the culture and history, including injustices against Black people, were the best parts of the book. The story jumped around a lot, and Seraphin’s adventures with women got boring. All in all,it was very different, and I thank NetGalley for the ARC.

Book received for free through NetGalley

Written well although it took me a bit to get fully into it. I enjoyed how the story flowed as it weaves in and out. Overall glad I came across it.

The story of a young man, born in Rwanda, living in Namibia, and educated in South Africa. This bright young man lives a colorful life with a whole cast of unique friends. It was an interesting look at Africa from the viewpoint of a young person. This book was given to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review.

The Eternal Audience of One is a genius, comedic, and heartfelt coming-of-age novel the revolves around a Rwandan family in exile and the son who just wants to escape. Ngamije explores the ties that bind this family in a fascinating non-linear way, illustrating Séraphin's experiences as a young adult yearning for freedom alongside the sacrifices his mother has made. The similarities between the two are clear, although they struggle to see eye to eye at this time. There is some rambling, to be sure, but Ngamije always brings his stories together with clear parallels that leave a mark. Overall, I found this novel refreshing both in the sarcastic dry humor and depth of topics, including growing up in disapora.

The Eternal Audience of One by Rémy Ngamije

Séraphin, a final year law student at a Cape Town university, wonders what the future holds after graduation. The Rwandan-Namibian is distant from his Rwandan parents but is still considered a foreigner in a country he has lived in since he was a child. The history of Séraphin’s parents as students in Paris and their escape from Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, is interspersed in between stories of university students’ social life. Ngamije seamlessly introduces new characters as if the reader already knows them before an introduction is offered. That Séraphin occasionally talks to different parts of himself through several Séraphins, seems a natural part of the novel that moves from omniscient to close third without missing a beat. Ngamije’s humor and observation of life is mature in a debut author, it heralds a new voice that will be read for years to come.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy. I love the sarcasm and wit. Many can relate to family and cultural issues.

I tried to get into this one two different times and just didn't click with the POV. On paper, this should be everything I like in a book but it feel flat for me, so I DNF.

Top ten book of 2021 for me! The writing was an absolute gift. Will be recommending this to everyone!

A thoroughly enjoyable read - funny, moving and frustrating all at once. I loved reading about Séraphin and his friends, but wish there'd been more about his family - the final chapters where his father visits him at university are wonderful. Thank you Netgalley.

The writing by this author is beautiful and I always appreciate good writing more than the story. In this case, because of my age ( I am a senior citizen) and my life experiences, I was more drawn to the story of the main character's parents. The main character is a young man whose adventures and mis-adventures were less interesting to me. The story of the upheaval of his family from their homeland in Africa was hard to fathom.

Sorry. It did nothing for me. It was OK but I had to f I even myself to read it. I just didn't enjoy it

I’ll load the dishwasher, oh yeah!

After many days of choosing kitchen clean-up over book pick-up, I threw in the towel halfway through. It’s not worth torturing myself when I could be head down with a book I loved. The language was magnificent, but it wasn’t enough. I liked the book okay at first, but it became a chore.

The story is about a young man from Rwanda who moves to Namibia and goes to college in South Africa. There’s very little about his days in Rwanda. One of the reasons I wanted to read this book is because I have such fond memories of The Girl Who Smiled Beads, a memoir about a girl from Rwanda who treks across Africa to escape the genocide. I wanted something as real as that, something as intense. Instead, it’s the story of an African college boy with college-boy worries.

Complaint Board:

-Didn’t like the main character, Seraphin. This isn’t a good thing, especially since it’s his coming-of-age story. He seemed like a self-absorbed alpha male who disposes of women as he searches for himself. Some of the reviews mention the word “millennial”—that could be a problem right there. I ain’t no millennial.

-Plot didn’t go anywhere. There sort of wasn’t a plot, really.

-Time and place changes weren’t graceful. I don’t mind a non-linear plot, but this felt disjointed.

-A little message-y. The non-plot was interrupted a lot by comments on social and racial issues.

-Weird conversations with himself, and he names each voice “Seraphin.” There were sometimes five Seraphins in the conversation at once. This did not work for me, AT ALL!

As I said, the language is inviting, but not enough to keep me in the room. Onto something more my speed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

The Eternal Audience of One, by Remy Ngamije in the backdrop of many countries in Africa, addressed some interesting topics through a young man's coming of age tale. Many young man and woman, travelling and migrating to various African countries for their education and a better life, facing prejudices while exploring their sexuality and identity, as well as struggling with their past and home countries. Felt a little scattered at times, yet an unusual read of cultural/nationalism struggles. Thank you NetGalley, publisher and author for the copy for review. All opinions are my own.

While this was an enjoyable read, I really wanted to like it better than I did. It was interesting to follow the character of Seraphin through part of his life and see how he dealt with it. I do not mind the style of writing where the timeline goes from present to past, but at times felt it was cumbersome. The life of an Rawandan refugee is not an easy way of living, but Seraphin and his family work hard to overcome. Seraphin is not always likeable, but in reality, the life that he led and the choices he made PLUS being a college student probably makes him no different in character than many others. I think this a book that many will really like, but it is not an easy or quick read. While I put my rating at 3...I would actually like it to be a 3.5. Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the opportunity to read and review this advance reader copy. #NetGalley #TheEternalAudienceofOne

Thank You to NetGalley and Gallery Books for gifting me with an ARC of The Eternal Audience of One, by Rémy Ngamije. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.

Perhaps it was my current mood, but it took me nearly a month to read this book. While I found the prose perfectly written, the nonlinear storytelling and meandering plot difficult to connect with. It was hard for me to return to the story and I never became fully invested in the plight of Séraphin, a Rwandan refugee living in Namibia attending law school in a very segregated South Africa. I can appreciate what the author was trying to present but this book was too long and lost me early on. That being said, I’m curious to see what Rémy Ngamije writes next.

This doesn’t happen that often for me, but this book really wasn’t my kind of book. I had high hopes for it - I always like reading about other places and cultures - but it fell flat. I was enticed by the idea of a story about Rwandans living in Namibia, having escaped the horrors that took place there in 1994. The main character is their oldest son, Seraphin, who is finishing up law school in Cape Town, South Africa. So the setup seemed a great opportunity to learn about various African countries and cultures. However, I didn’t get much of that at all. There was just too much of nothing going on: lots of scenes of Seraphin (and his imaginary band of Seraphins/angels) hanging around with his university or law school friends and lots of sex with lots of women and lots of references to music (at least that was a mix of “western” and African). Plus a non-linear timeline with random flashbacks to his childhood or scenes of his parents’ young lives. I was way more interested in Seraphin’s parents and their story, but got very little of it. I nearly DNF’d this at about 30% but wound up skimming most of the rest to see if it got any better. Nope. I will say that the author has a lot of fun with word play and descriptions. I just wish there had been a stronger plot and a bigger payoff for slogging through all the way to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books/Scout Press for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.