Loved the tone and appreciated the humour in this book. Especially in the first half or so, there are a lot of  descriptions of colonisation and corruption which from the POV of a teenage orphan who has never known any different are spot on. 

To me, this book at its heart is about how an African boy experiences the world that he is tossed into with all the traumas and moral dilemmas this involves. However, as many others have pointed out, the low page number doesn’t afford much depth to these traumas. You get glimpses of the complexities going on inside his head but it just doesn’t feel like enough.

Some readers don’t seem to care for the somewhat sudden and slightly untethered ending. But to me, there is something to be appreciated about his descent into syphilitic insanity and the thoughts it reveals to bring the book full circle.