Great African Reads discussion

SPOILERs
This thread is for discussions of our May/June 2023 read of We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo - Notice that there may be SPOILERS (Find the no-spoiler thread here)
- Feel free to discuss anything you like about the book here: Here's a few questions to get you started:
How did you like the characters? The plot? The style? The portrayal of characters and their surroundings?

Hi,
We read this book as a group read back in 2015. If you're interested in re-reading our discussion at that time, here's the thread.

I just checked it out from library and will try to get a quick start on it.

I'm halfway through it now. The characters are very vivid and I'm enjoying the clever dialogs such as when the protagonist is in America and sees a driver unable to get his car out of the snow, and says it's like a dung beetle trying to roll a too-big ball of dung up a hill.

I got my library copy so will start soon as well.

I finished and did enjoy it. It got pretty raunchy in the late-middle with the main character, Darling, watching porn on the internet with her friends.
It could reasonably be argued that it could have been two books, the first one when Darling is in Zimbabwe and the 2nd when she's in the U. S. Or there could be more continuity between the two parts- it's kind of disjointed.
But I thought Darling and the others were excellent well-developed characters and the theme of the immigrant experience was well-explored in the later part.
Did you notice that the authors name given on the book is a pen name? Her legal name is Elizabeth Tshele.
This novel was on the short-list for the UK's Man-Booker prize.