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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3 stars, but barely. Lots of hype around this book, so much that I decided to bypass the library wait and buy it in hardcover, thinking I would recommend to other and/or they might want to borrow. Perhaps the latter holds true. Some interesting elements about red v. blue and what (civil) war fueled by climate change might look like. But mostly thin, bleak and not very engaging. The last 30 pages try to make up for it, and let the story breathe a bit, but too little too late. Look for this as a movie to be released against the backdrop of the scheduled 2020 elections.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Second time reading and it was quite good.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a beautiful, ugly book. It was recommended to me by someone who said it reminded them of the Parable of the Sower. I get it and I agree- none of the violence or political rhetoric or logical steps that Akkad uses is new or experimental. It is all just artfully relocated historical violence, just like in Parable of the Sower. And those elements are relocated into an extremely plausible future scenario.
It is also an honest portrait of extremists, and done in a way that should make one question the oft repeated phrase “never negotiate with terrorists”. In American War, the terrorist make perfect sense- how could it not be this? The extremism happens in part through rhetoric and recruiting, and also through suffering and circumstance. The way in which the narratives and stories that are available to us shape what collapses from the field of all possibilities into the only “available options”. Reflecting on how the main character was recruited (into extremism) after suffering terribly as a refugee and a victim of war violence- one character said “if the course of life doesn't require recruit her to the cause, no man will.” What an invitation to reconsider who/what is extremist in the present and change our responses accordingly?!
I can’t help but contrast Sarat with Lauren Olamina in Parable. How Lauren developers Earthseed and is brimming with imagination… and where did that come from that was lacking in Sarat’s childhood? At one point after Sarat has been captured, abused in prison for years, and then released, this operative from the North African empire says this: “I know how much you have fought and how much you have suffered. You want something the size of your vengeance, Sarat. This, I believe, is the size of your vengeance.”
Here's another banger, about why this war was happening in the first place: “All these old men want it to be like it was when they were young, but it'll never be like that again. And. And they'll never be young again, no matter what they do. And it's not just ours that do that.
It's theirs too. Imagine if the north had just let us be. Imagine if they didn't fight us tooth and nail, kill all those innocent people just to keep us from having a country of our own and doing things our own way. Would it really have been so bad? No, of course it wouldn't. But it wasn't that away when all those old people that run everything were young. So they can't let it be. And you and I, and them too, we're young. And we ain't bound by what they're bound by…
Only thing they ever cared about was themselves. But us, we're of this place.” And then the guy she's talking to says, I'm not of this place. She's surprised and asks like, why are you fighting if you're not of this place? And the kid says, “I just wanted to be something.” And ain't that it? Old men who are trying to keep it like it was, and young men trying to be something.
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interestingly prognosticative.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Started and finished date - 07.05.25 to 10.05.25.
My rating - Three Stars.
This book was okay read but I didn't love it and people who like internment by Samira Ahmed, the hunger games by Suzanne Collins or the choice by Claire Wade may like is book. The cover of book was okay. The writing was okay but it was bit hard to follow and the atmosphere was okay. The paced of plot was well structured and this book was steady paced. I mixed about the characters and I would have like them flash out bit more.
My rating - Three Stars.
This book was okay read but I didn't love it and people who like internment by Samira Ahmed, the hunger games by Suzanne Collins or the choice by Claire Wade may like is book. The cover of book was okay. The writing was okay but it was bit hard to follow and the atmosphere was okay. The paced of plot was well structured and this book was steady paced. I mixed about the characters and I would have like them flash out bit more.