The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

This novel is about the story of one family's stay in Africa during the independence movement of Congo from Belgium. Reverend Nathan Price and his family are Free Will Baptists on a mission given to him by God to spread Christianity through a small town called Kilanga. He packs up his wife and their four daughters in June of 1959 for what they believe to be a one year stay, until they find out that due to the Congolese fight for independence, their replacements have cancelled and no one will be taking over the ministering position. Nathan can't stand for that and, to the dismay of his run-down family, decides that they're staying in Kilanga until suitable replacements are found. During this period terrible things occur, and while his family is nearly torn apart by each event, the overly calm reverend becomes irritated with them, reminding them that what happens is God's will.
The begining of the end of the Price family comes when both Ruth May, Nathan's youngest daughter, and his wife, Orleanna, fall gravely ill. Orleanna recovers after a month in bed, but five year-old Ruth May doesn't overcome her illness so quickly. The family discovers she hasn't been taking her malaria pills, and that this is the disease that is ailing her. Eventually she recovers, but she is a mere shadow of her former self. At the same time, the village's chief, Tata Ndu, decides he wants to marry the eldest daughter, Rachel.  He chose Rachel because of her nearly white hair and skin, which he says will help cheer up his six or seven other wives. Meanwhile, the family is broke; the organization they began the mission with stopped providing money and supplies when the Congolese were granted independence. They have no way to get any real sustenance apart from the fruit they can collect.
While Orleanna and Ruth May are sick, the three other girls have to care for the house and the food. This poses a problem because in addition to having no appliances to help with any of the cooking or housework, all water, which is carried up from the river, needs to be boiled to kill any infections before use. None of the girls are strong or balanced enough to carry all the water in one trip, so filling the pot to boil is a time comsuming task. In addition, all this has to be done to their father's liking, who in addition to being difficult to please, spends his days writing his sermons rather than helping around the hut. Luckily for the family, a young Congolese boy named Nelson is sent to help the family in exchange for food and lodging in their chicken coop. Nelson is very intelligant and is an asset for the family when it comes to understanding the ways of the villagers.
Several months later, the first elected ruler of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, is assassinated and the town is thrown in a panic when the army comes barging through, destroying anything in it's path.
After this a drought hits Kilanga, the village decides to hold a massive hunt. There is much controversy over whether or not Leah is allowed to join, seeing as women in the Congo aren't even allowed to wear pants let alone contribute to "manly" activities like hunting. Ultimately a vote is taken by throwing stones in a bowl, and Leah is allowed to partake in the hunt. The chief, Tata Ndu, and the resident witch-doctor, Tata Kuvundu, are very opposed to this happening, and aren't afraid to say so.
The next night, a man named Anatole, who is the school teacher in Kilanga and a close friend of Leah's, finds an evil symbol infront of his hut. Later that night, he wakes up to find a poisonous mamba snake next to his bed. Nelson also finds the same symbol by the chicken coop he sleeps in, and out of fear pleads to be allowed to sleep in the house that night. When Nathan says no, the girls decide to sleep with him in the coop. They sprinkle ashes around the hut to get the footprints of the person responsible. the next day they find a print with six toes, leading them to Tata Kuvundu, who was well known for his additional appandage. While trying to pass the snake to get out of the coop, Ruth May is bitten and immediately dies.
This causes Orleanna to take action. She takes her remaining girls and leaves. They walk all the way to a village called Bulungu before Leah falls ill to malaria. They continue on after leaving her in the care of Anatole, who later marries her. They have four children together, each named after significant men in their lives. Rachel is flown out of Bulungu by Eeben Axelroot, a man who had taken a fancy to her since they had faked an engagement to get Rachel out of having to marry Tata Ndu. Rachel ends up marrying three men throughout her life, one an ambassador, and the last of which leaves her a hotel in the French Congo to run. Adah and Orleanna make there way back to Georgia, where Adah goes on to become an epidemiologist.
Orleanna, on the other hand, lives the rest of her life in guilt over Ruth May's death. The last chapter, however, is from Ruth May's point of view after death, where she tells her mother to move on and that death isn't worse than life, but that "you could say the view is larger."

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Although it took me some time to get into it, once the story becomes more in depth and the characters begin to grow on you, you can't help but to root for them. The way Barbara Kingsolver writes really gives you insight into the way the character thinks and shows you their personalities in a more telling way than writing from a single point of view ever could. Part of the reason for this is that each character is so different, with such different idiosycracies and believes, that getting each event from the point of view of several different characters be beneficial to the reader's comprehension of the story's events and the overall enjoyment of the book.