Hello friends, happy Wednesday! I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m posting my review of Téa Mutonji’s novel, Shut Up You’re Pretty.

This novel was short-listed for Canada Reads 2024.

Shut Up You’re Pretty by: Téa Mutonji: Loli is just a young girl when she immigrants to Canada from Congo with her family. Over the course of the novel we see her through her teen years into early adulthood and how she deals with the ever changing course of her life and the things that got thrown at her. A coming of age story that is told in short story vignettes, depicting different stages of our main character’s life from her childhood days to her young adult days. This made for such a brilliant way to tell her story; it made it so that her story never dragged and we could really get a glimpse of who she is as a person at the varying points in her life. This also felt like a great way to keep the plot moving without it feeling like it jump-cut abruptly, like it could have in a regular novel format; with the short stories, it made sense to have the years move in the rapid succession that they did, and the reader really liked that. Not only was this told well, but the writing was really good, too. Mutonji had a way of captivating her audience with her words; they were so moving and evoked a lot of emotions, which made for a deeper and more meaningful read. Loli as a character was strongly developed. She had a lot to overcome and we could see the rises and pitfalls of her life and the choices she was making and why. The reader was always rooting for her and hoping for the best because even when she was making poor choices, we could see that she understood it wasn’t the best, but it was what she could do at that time. Watching as she discovered who she was and who she wanted to be, through the different people she encountered who made her the strong person she turned out to be, was poignant and emotional. In the end, this was a good read that was told in a creative and touching way.