RaveThe Seattle TimesHalf of a Yellow Sun (the book takes its title from the rising sun on the official flag of Biafra) covers the war and the years leading up to it in a sweeping story that provides both a harrowing history lesson and an engagingly human narrative … Adichie shifts points of view among the central characters, keeping their stories always in the foreground. She also alternates between the pre-war and war years, wrapping the emerging political conflict in a rich and involving drama. Olanna and Kainene, embarked on very different roads, become increasingly estranged; both are almost embarrassed by their parents, wealthy dilettantes. A central crisis of unfaithfulness drives the sisters still further apart and threatens Olanna's relationship with Odenigbo. Ugwu, perhaps most engaging of all the characters, grows by book's end from a young boy into a scarred and guilt-ridden battle veteran.
