The Price's arrive wearing most of their clothes with boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix taped to their bodies to get around the weight restrictions on the flight. They soon find that converting the villagers to Christianity is a complex process - most of their congregation are the lower rungs of Congo society looking for an alternative god 'Tata Jesus' to try out. This half of the book was interesting, and despite the annoying malapropisms from Rachel, I enjoyed as a great 'clash of cultures' story and a transport into jungle life in the Congo.
The second half of the story after the family leaves the jungle is more problematic and less enjoyable. Leah brings what seems to be a very one-sided view of history to the struggle for independence, which made me doubt a lot of the historical accuracy of the rest of the novel. Basically her message was that the Congo was doing fine until America came and screwed it up. Real life is never that simple.
Rachel becomes an arrogant white-supremacist who doesn't leave the bar of her upscale hotel, and despite a short journey through what seemed to be a made-for-TV miracle cure, Adah barely features at all.
The picture of the Price family in the jungle will stay with me, but the rest of the book is fairly forgettable. I don't think it deserves its position on many top 100 lists.
3.5 stars.
