What do readers think of Digging Stars by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma? Write your own review.

My knowledge of astronomy begins and ends with the Big Dipper! The creative talent to take a subject such as astronomy and interweave with a relatable family story is awesome. I love to read for entertainment but when a books piques my interest in a subject I know nothing about that is even better! I went down the internet rabbit hole to read about Zimbabwe, Bantu geometry, astronomy , melanin research etc… The story is energized with an off kilter feeling. I didn't always like the characters but they were real and flawed and as perfect as the stars.

So, where do I start? I apologize for being such a slow reader, but with this book I caught myself rereading passages to savor the language, the sentences, the paragraphs, such great writing! The book itself is about Rosa and her life spent in the "program" continuing her fathers work and her dreams. Living with what she calls the terrors, and adjusting to her life in the Midwest. All in all it was a great read by a talented author.

This is an interesting book for several reasons. The author tackles the always tricky issue of family relationships as well as ethnicity and how American culture influences people growing up in other countries.

How a parent living in another country shapes the life of their child is addressed here. Rosa idolizes her father, and her mother doesn't do much to change her idealized image of him. Even when she spends time with him in New York, she questions his lifestyle, yet because she doesn't verbalize her questions, they are never answered. Is this how life really is? Culturally I think this was accurate, and it illustrated a different way of thinking and growing up that may be surprising to some readers.

I enjoyed and appreciated the thread of outer space history throughout the book. It is much more complicated than we realized at the time, growing up in the 60s. What I did find unsettling were the Rosa's unresolved questions and how they affected her as a young adult. Certainly, success is fleeting in life, and how you view others' success is different from whether you think you achieve it for yourself. I wished for more happiness for Rosa. Perhaps it is my personal preference for a "happy ending."

Digging Stars is a story about a young girl living in Zimbabwe whose accomplished father lives in America. Through the story, I was allowed to see how children's perceptions of their parents and of other countries influence their lives and how perceptions can change as people grow and experience life. The story reveals how differently the characters respond to new knowledge about culture, countries, relationships, and the importance of education. Experiences of poverty and injustice are woven throughout the story. The daughter and father shared a common interest in studying and looking in awe at the stars and constellations and later in studying astronomy and space travel. It is an interesting, thoughtful story.

First to say what this book is not: It is not an easy, happy, feel-good read. It is an exploration of one young woman's journey. We meet her as she visits her father in New York, where is surprises her with a new girlfriend and life she didn't know he had, and we watch her struggle with her loyalties to her mother and to find a place in her father's world. We know of the financial and physical struggles of growing up in Zimbabwe in a time of turmoil, wishing for escape and rescue to the life she viewed with her father, to have that suddenly and tragically taken from her. And we see her as an adult in a prestigious graduate program, trying to cope with her stresses and the damage of her past. All along the way, we, as the reader, have the opportunity to reflect and see ourselves in this brilliant woman and to visit our own histories - have we built a fantasy or do we see reality as it relates to our parents and our lives. We see people accepting or struggling with or against the social challenges of the day. I became aware of the micro-aggressions that are so prevalent in our society and the surprised by how easily even the person who is experiencing it can be accepting of it - such as how it seems to be OK to change someone's name in Western culture because their indigenous names does not easily toll off the tongue. This book will walk with me for a long while.

I enjoyed this book and its themes, although at times I found the pace of it uneven. And although the author is an excellent writer, at times I was put off by redundant adjectives and descriptions. It's an interesting exploration of the effect of an absent parent on a child and on the adult she becomes. Rosa studies astrophysics and other characters study the purpose of melanin in human skin, programming of virtual worlds, ethnicity and identity, providing a helpful academic backdrop that leads her to finally explore the source of her "terrors" and the downside to her idolization of her flawed dead father. I think this would be an interesting book for a book club to read and discuss, both for the psychological issues it raises, but also for the topics related to race, ethnicity and scientific ethics.

This is one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. It explores so many issues: astronomy and space exploration, racism, relationships and the search for the understanding of, and love for, a remarkable and genius parent. The writing is moving and complex, and the author's master of the English language helps emphasize the brilliance of the story's narrator as well as the author herself.

Digging Stars was, for me, an average read: it did not fully engage me as a reader; a daughter or scientist. It was too "all over the place" for me…..
The author might have considered narrowing the focus of the plot to fully develop both the characters and the sequence of events: I found myself wandering around mentally during my reading of the book…..not fully engaged by the text at all…..
I was disappointed in the author and in myself for my lack of enthusiasm for this novel.