• I had a hard time getting through this book.
• Maybe I just lacked some important historical/cultural context, but I couldn't really get into it. 
• Although, there were some parts I enjoyed as well. How travelling traders worked and how they met and learned about people on their journeys, how some people only spoke Arabic and the others only Swahili and how they communicated, how Europeans were slowly taking over, how railways were being built, and the descriptions of places were nice, too. Basically, I like reading about everyday life in East Africa (Tanzania) in those times. Hmmm, I didn't really like the main characters themselves. Many of them were just meh and didn't make me care about them, I guess.