Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Published 2017 · 416 pages · 104,000 words · about 12 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Behold the Dreamers to read?
Behold the Dreamers scores 41 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 35 out of 100
- Clear prose with Cameroonian vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Accessible sentences.
- Abstraction: 40 out of 100
- Immigration and American dream explored.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with immigration detail and 2008 crisis.
- Narrative indirection: 40 out of 100
- Multiple perspectives on same events.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- The American dream carries weight.
- Ironic distance: 40 out of 100
- Mbue writes with evident sympathy.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- Dreams adjusted; life continues.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Dual family perspectives.
How Behold the Dreamers is regarded
Behold the Dreamers holds a literary regard score of 59 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.