Want to read a book about friendship filled with birth stories that’s full of drama? Monique and the Mango Rains in your book. Just looking at the book cover, the passionate eyes of Monique, the Mali midwife who becomes friends with the author of the book Kris Holloway, at the time a young Peace Corps volunteer, I knew this book was going to be a gem. It’s one of those books that had to be written. Thank goodness Holloway sat down at her computer and wrote it.

Part crash-course in international maternity care issues, part love story and part tribute to a young local African midwife who effortlessly embodied the spirit of a midwife, Monique and the Mango Rains is a tender book that reveals so much about how life is lived by so many people in developing countries. And how so many mothers in Africa don’t have access to skilled birth attendants and the basic supplies needed to have a safe and healthy birth experience.

There is no way to sugar-coat poverty in Africa, a topic that hits the headlines often, but in this book we learn that African people are much more than the stories of poverty. It was refreshing to read such an intimate portrait of an African woman and a delicious treat to have her be a midwife. Having been a Peace Corps volunteer myself in Central America at around the same young age as Holloway, I found myself wishing I had such a juicy Peace Corps assignment!

Friendship is what sets this book apart from the typical African memoir by a Peace Corps volunteer. Holloway not only gives us an intimate picture of Monique, but she chronicles their deep friendship, a white middle-class American woman and a poor black African woman, a topic rarely explored in memoirs. To me, this alone is a reason to read this book.

I won’t give away the dramatic end of the book, but will tell you that I couldn’t put the book down! Happy summer reading…

To view a short film about the book click HERE

To join the BOLD Book Club click HERE.