I'm giving this book an entire star just for its ambitious and fascinating concept - an alternate history where steam technology exists during the colonization of Belgian Congo and the humanitarian crisis there. I'm also giving it a star for giving voice such a diverse cast of characters from all kinds of backgrounds - different races, sexualities, ideologies, economic classes, etc. 
 But as you can see from my rating, that's the two stars right there. The actual telling of this story didn't work for me. It's told in very short chapters - more like vignettes, really. Huge jumps of time and location occur between the chapters, from months to years. We never spend time with a character long enough to really connect or even begin to understand them. Important events take place during the time jumps, so we hear about them posthumously or second-hand. This also means things like Character A and Character B go from not even knowing each other to being deeply in love from one chapter to the next - how is the reader supposed to buy into that relationship if they don't even get to see it? 
 If not for the premise, I would've abandoned this book at 100 pages. As it is, I'm not really happy that I stuck it out. 
 2016 reading challenge: a book set in Africa