How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

This book is set in the fictional African village of Kosawa and is the story of a decades-long fight for environmental justice in a former colony. The novel centers around the Nangi family, telling their story from multiple different perspectives over the course of the book. In addition to addressing the real issues of continued colonial influence to the detriment of those who live there and without them benefitting from their local resources, it bears a close resemblance to some important modern-day climate themes. People eventually act in an extreme way but they are driven to it by the combination of desperation and neglect, and the reader may squirm at the lengths that are resorted to, at no point does one feel they cannot relate to the impotence Kosawa feels in being unable to control their present of their future.