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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
This is a horror story! Things go from bad to worse and just when you think things are turning around everything goes to hell.
It was a slow start, and a little hard to get into at first. This is mostly due to the format, which is part fiction part faux-history. The story chapters alternate with "historical" documents which can be a little jarring. Plus there is a lot of information to get out to fully understand the horrific state of America.
Overall this book presents a very dark future that is all the more frightening because it seems so possible. Sarat, is a fascinating protagonist, flawed and broken, relatable but alien. A fantastic read, if you have the stomach for it.
It was a slow start, and a little hard to get into at first. This is mostly due to the format, which is part fiction part faux-history. The story chapters alternate with "historical" documents which can be a little jarring. Plus there is a lot of information to get out to fully understand the horrific state of America.
Overall this book presents a very dark future that is all the more frightening because it seems so possible. Sarat, is a fascinating protagonist, flawed and broken, relatable but alien. A fantastic read, if you have the stomach for it.
The premise of this book is brilliant. The maps at the beginning are, too. But half-way through the book I still didn't care a bit about any of the characters. I didn't finish this one.
This was a hard book to rate for me. It was pretty hard to get through but it was pretty powerful especially when it got to the end. I felt the middle was a little slow and the beginning was a little too long. But overall, it was good and memorable.
Another one for "One librarian's struggle to read all the books she brought home from ALA Midwinter 2017." American War imagines a future in which the north and south of the United States are engaged in civil war sparked by a prohibition against fossil fuels. The story follows Sarat Chestnut as her family are displaced and changed by the violence of the Second American Civil War. I chose and enjoyed this book because it was something utterly outside my comfort-zone and it's one of those books that has so much depth and complexity I feel like I'm not smart enough to talk about it. El Akkad's background is in journalism, and the writing is at once tight and driven as well as lyrical and incredibly tender in its treatment of Sarat and her experiences as it ultimately explores the question of what happens when a country turns the brutalities of war against itself. If you enjoy reading about dystopian futures with real-world implications, this is the one for you. For the tender-hearted novice, like myself, it's rough but manageable. Definitely a must-read.
It's a somewhat interesting premise, following a family during the second American Civil War, but the pacing in this book can use some work. About halfway through the book the style switches from third person to first person which I'm not a big fan of, and every chapter ends with a separate but slightly related news article to further give background to the status of the US outside of this family.
I didn't really feel much reading this book. The adventure parts didn't really excite me, the rougher parts in the second half didn't really move me and none of the characters, even though the main character is a strong female, made me care about them.
I would not recommend this book, it's 2.5 stars, rounded up.
I didn't really feel much reading this book. The adventure parts didn't really excite me, the rougher parts in the second half didn't really move me and none of the characters, even though the main character is a strong female, made me care about them.
I would not recommend this book, it's 2.5 stars, rounded up.
Damn, this book was a lot. It is about war and trauma and connection and inequity and pain and death and war. It is about making and unmaking, specifically the making and unmaking of one girl. It is beautiful and heartbreaking and incredibly depressing while also having moments of hope. It has some faults, but overall it is a really well done, expansive read that is also terrifying.
The Second Civil War has struck the United States. The South and North disagree on the use of fossil fuels in a hot world getting hotter. Sarat lives with her family in the South. Her life changes when her father is killed and her family is moved to a refugee camp.
Spoilers Discussion!
Okay, so I didn't see the ending coming until Joe arrived. And then lots of things clicked into place for me. And of course it makes sense that, when given an opportunity, she would destroy so completely. This book is about how she became a person who would be interested in that kind of extreme action.
One of the really interesting thing about this book for me is its relationship to kind actions. For example, Sarat didn't kill Bud Baker's children, and therefore they went on to lead really hateful lives and treat others horribly. One of Bud Baker's sons chose not to hurt Sarat, and to let her go through the border, and therefore millions of people died. Layla jr survived because Sarat told her in advance but also what a life she lived. Are these acts of kindness worth it, if they end in such death and destruction?
I liked that we had a fairly small cast of characters, but they appeared again and again. Even characters like Layla Jr who we only saw for one scene, really, in the bulk of the novel came back at the very end. Marcus kept on appearing and reappearing, etc. I also liked that we got a kind of "where are they now" at the end of the book, so we got to see where all of the characters we got to know earlier had a kind of goodbye. It also makes sense that, going to her death, Sarat would also want to say goodbye to them all.
I think that the world is really cool and really well developed. I loved having the excerpts from the historical documents. I think it fleshed out the content of the book and the world, while also giving us a bunch of hints about the ending and how characters were connected. I think it was a really smart choice, and I also found myself getting excited for the end of a chapter when I could read the document.
I did think that the pace of the story was a little weird. Not necessarily bad, but weird. It was fairly slow, but the jumps in time were extreme. We also missed the descriptions of a lot of the actual action (for example, when Sarat was actually taken to Sugarloaf, not just while she was there.) I basically would find myself getting kind of bored when the pace was slow, and then feeling like I'd missed a bunch of important content that I was actually really intrigued by in the interim.
Also, this book is really, really intense. Those torture sequences when she was in Sugarloaf were really terrible. And beyond actual moments of real intensity, the themes of the book and its general through-line of trauma are really intense and powerful.
I think Karina is an interesting character and I would've loved to see a little bit more of her background. I feel like she was just thrown in later on and then ended up being one of the most influential characters in the book. I am really intrigued by her relationship with Simon and would love to know more about it, and how he can consent to their relationship and where his health is etc. I'm intrigued.
Sarat's dedication to Benjamin at the end was sweet. But also, the safest thing for him and her whole family would've probably been for her to not kill millions of people. Y'know? I also really loved Sarat's relationship with her sister, and the whole "beautiful girl" thing (which I think is especially sweet given that it doesn't come with any expectation of what beautiful is, y'know?)
I will check out future work by this author, because I thought this book was well done, if hard to get into.
Fin!
Heart-wrenching, powerful story: 89%
The Second Civil War has struck the United States. The South and North disagree on the use of fossil fuels in a hot world getting hotter. Sarat lives with her family in the South. Her life changes when her father is killed and her family is moved to a refugee camp.
Spoilers Discussion!
Okay, so I didn't see the ending coming until Joe arrived. And then lots of things clicked into place for me. And of course it makes sense that, when given an opportunity, she would destroy so completely. This book is about how she became a person who would be interested in that kind of extreme action.
One of the really interesting thing about this book for me is its relationship to kind actions. For example, Sarat didn't kill Bud Baker's children, and therefore they went on to lead really hateful lives and treat others horribly. One of Bud Baker's sons chose not to hurt Sarat, and to let her go through the border, and therefore millions of people died. Layla jr survived because Sarat told her in advance but also what a life she lived. Are these acts of kindness worth it, if they end in such death and destruction?
I liked that we had a fairly small cast of characters, but they appeared again and again. Even characters like Layla Jr who we only saw for one scene, really, in the bulk of the novel came back at the very end. Marcus kept on appearing and reappearing, etc. I also liked that we got a kind of "where are they now" at the end of the book, so we got to see where all of the characters we got to know earlier had a kind of goodbye. It also makes sense that, going to her death, Sarat would also want to say goodbye to them all.
I think that the world is really cool and really well developed. I loved having the excerpts from the historical documents. I think it fleshed out the content of the book and the world, while also giving us a bunch of hints about the ending and how characters were connected. I think it was a really smart choice, and I also found myself getting excited for the end of a chapter when I could read the document.
I did think that the pace of the story was a little weird. Not necessarily bad, but weird. It was fairly slow, but the jumps in time were extreme. We also missed the descriptions of a lot of the actual action (for example, when Sarat was actually taken to Sugarloaf, not just while she was there.) I basically would find myself getting kind of bored when the pace was slow, and then feeling like I'd missed a bunch of important content that I was actually really intrigued by in the interim.
Also, this book is really, really intense. Those torture sequences when she was in Sugarloaf were really terrible. And beyond actual moments of real intensity, the themes of the book and its general through-line of trauma are really intense and powerful.
I think Karina is an interesting character and I would've loved to see a little bit more of her background. I feel like she was just thrown in later on and then ended up being one of the most influential characters in the book. I am really intrigued by her relationship with Simon and would love to know more about it, and how he can consent to their relationship and where his health is etc. I'm intrigued.
Sarat's dedication to Benjamin at the end was sweet. But also, the safest thing for him and her whole family would've probably been for her to not kill millions of people. Y'know? I also really loved Sarat's relationship with her sister, and the whole "beautiful girl" thing (which I think is especially sweet given that it doesn't come with any expectation of what beautiful is, y'know?)
I will check out future work by this author, because I thought this book was well done, if hard to get into.
Fin!
Heart-wrenching, powerful story: 89%
I have many issues with this book. The premise is thought provoking - can our world look like this?; however, the writing was weak, the characters were boring, and the plot had holes. I feel like something was missing from this book. The best way I can describe it is shallow. Disappointing.
American War is a timely book as the divisions in US society seem to grow day by day with battle-lines often drawn in the same old places. There's an appetite for visions of how our apparent descent into conflict and intolerance might end and they are far from cheerful. American War envisions a USA once more torn apart, North against South with the South breaking away from the Union creating a new generation of sectarianism and bloodshed. With Nazi flags marching openly in the streets who's to say this is not the future, less a dystopia than a terrifying possibility. Unfortunately it is the details that are less convincing. The failure to address race or religion in any meaningful way is difficult to understand. Considering how central these themes continue to be in contemporary US events this is a glaring omission that doesn't sit well, it seems vastly unlikely that a second civil war would be ignited by environmental issues (and the idea of the US being a world-leader in finally abandoning fossil fuels is frankly laughable) without the churning morass of these issues being incorporated into the narrative. Considering that el Akkad makes the choice to frame his main character as part-Latino and part-African-American and highlights the poverty and uncertainty of their position it leaves a yawning hole that suggests that it was too difficult to address but is also impossible to ignore.
That being said while the cause of the new conflict may be on shaky ground and it may turn a blind eye to the glaringly obvious the rapid, almost-inevitable progression and escalation of the Second Civil War el Akkad describes is chillingly plausible. The clear-eyed, sensitive dissection of how how pain, loss and hated can forge anyone into a devastating weapon is both insightful and pertinent and it would have been even more powerful if it had been attached to a character one could connect with. Unfortunately, after the first few pages Sarat becomes elusive and difficult to reach. The barriers she builds are understandable within the story but they shouldn't exist between the character and the reader, at least not permanently.
For the most part the complex structure is more of a stumbling block than an asset. The jumps in time confuse the story and often excise developments that it would have been better to experience at first-hand. The conceit of incorporating other excerpts of other sources to add context and detail is a popular one. Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace) and Hannah Kent (Burial Rites) both used real and fictional sources in their historical fiction with enormous effect and success in their historical fiction. When it works it lends great texture and depth to a story, its reality is more tangible but it works better when there is reality at the base already. Sadly, in this case, it just tangles and slows the plot, creating an illusion of complexity when really one of the main problems is that the premise of American War is not complex enough, or at least it doesn't evidence the complexity of its world effectively. For example, the political makeup of this late twenty-first-century world is quite different to our own but rather than an Orwellian world such as 1984 in which the composition of the nations and their relations was (and is) all too credible I found myself wondering several times just how these new nations and world-powers emerged. These muddy waters were frustrating hinting at such vast changes that are actually so integral to the plot without any convincing explanation severely weakens the structure of the story.
There is some lovely writing and the ideas are both compelling and worrying but ultimately the internal inconsistencies of the story and the world-building turn something that could have been groundbreaking into something quite frustrating.
That being said while the cause of the new conflict may be on shaky ground and it may turn a blind eye to the glaringly obvious the rapid, almost-inevitable progression and escalation of the Second Civil War el Akkad describes is chillingly plausible. The clear-eyed, sensitive dissection of how how pain, loss and hated can forge anyone into a devastating weapon is both insightful and pertinent and it would have been even more powerful if it had been attached to a character one could connect with. Unfortunately, after the first few pages Sarat becomes elusive and difficult to reach. The barriers she builds are understandable within the story but they shouldn't exist between the character and the reader, at least not permanently.
For the most part the complex structure is more of a stumbling block than an asset. The jumps in time confuse the story and often excise developments that it would have been better to experience at first-hand. The conceit of incorporating other excerpts of other sources to add context and detail is a popular one. Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace) and Hannah Kent (Burial Rites) both used real and fictional sources in their historical fiction with enormous effect and success in their historical fiction. When it works it lends great texture and depth to a story, its reality is more tangible but it works better when there is reality at the base already. Sadly, in this case, it just tangles and slows the plot, creating an illusion of complexity when really one of the main problems is that the premise of American War is not complex enough, or at least it doesn't evidence the complexity of its world effectively. For example, the political makeup of this late twenty-first-century world is quite different to our own but rather than an Orwellian world such as 1984 in which the composition of the nations and their relations was (and is) all too credible I found myself wondering several times just how these new nations and world-powers emerged. These muddy waters were frustrating hinting at such vast changes that are actually so integral to the plot without any convincing explanation severely weakens the structure of the story.
There is some lovely writing and the ideas are both compelling and worrying but ultimately the internal inconsistencies of the story and the world-building turn something that could have been groundbreaking into something quite frustrating.
A lyrical, haunting, all too feasible novel of American during its second civil war. This one will stay with you for quite a while after you've set it down.
That one was recommended by one of my friends. And the thing is I LOVE that type of stories. A story about ruins as the author puts it.
It took me a while to finish it because I didn't want my copy to get too damaged. After all it's not that easy to find in Egypt.
I just loved it with all its scars. It was terrifying, beautiful and real.
It took me a while to finish it because I didn't want my copy to get too damaged. After all it's not that easy to find in Egypt.
I just loved it with all its scars. It was terrifying, beautiful and real.