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A review by toggle_fow
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book is a long series of very effective gut punches.
Genuinely I do not know how to rate nonfiction. Is this written in an extremely high-quality literary manner? No. It is written sparsely, with a detachment that feels odd to a reader given the horrific subject matter - but makes perfect sense if you think about the person who experienced it all trying to write about something he can barely stand to emotionally access.
Ishmael's village is attacked and destroyed by rebels during the Sierra Leone civil war. This book doesn't give you any understanding of why these things are happening, because from Ishmael's twelve-year-old perspective, it is incomprehensible.
This is the story of him on the run for his life, being drafted into the government's army at thirteen years old, and then at sixteen being extracted by UNICEF.
The running time period seems like a bad dream, in which nothing makes any sense and terrible things happen for no reason at all. The war years are the shortest section of the book. What's described is enough to help you understand generally what went on, but leaves enough unsaid that you can probably read between the lines. The anger, pointless butchery, and desperation is overwhelming.
What happens after Ishmael is taken from the army (by force) is absolutely astounding.
I am amazed by the way the people in Freetown were able to help the boys to "rehabilitation." How the boys literally killed each other in the school courtyard and regularly attacked the staff at the rehabilitation center with feral, mob violence -- and the staff kept coming back. And kept helping. And kept saying "none of this is your fault."
I'm in awe. How did they know how to do that?
The end of the book leaves a lot open-ended. We don't see the path Ishmael took to New York, though we know he eventually gets there, and we don't see the life he built for himself later on. Still, I think it's enough, and honestly my five stars are for the "rehabilitation" part of the story. Those people are incredible.
Genuinely I do not know how to rate nonfiction. Is this written in an extremely high-quality literary manner? No. It is written sparsely, with a detachment that feels odd to a reader given the horrific subject matter - but makes perfect sense if you think about the person who experienced it all trying to write about something he can barely stand to emotionally access.
Ishmael's village is attacked and destroyed by rebels during the Sierra Leone civil war. This book doesn't give you any understanding of why these things are happening, because from Ishmael's twelve-year-old perspective, it is incomprehensible.
This is the story of him on the run for his life, being drafted into the government's army at thirteen years old, and then at sixteen being extracted by UNICEF.
The running time period seems like a bad dream, in which nothing makes any sense and terrible things happen for no reason at all. The war years are the shortest section of the book. What's described is enough to help you understand generally what went on, but leaves enough unsaid that you can probably read between the lines. The anger, pointless butchery, and desperation is overwhelming.
What happens after Ishmael is taken from the army (by force) is absolutely astounding.
I am amazed by the way the people in Freetown were able to help the boys to "rehabilitation." How the boys literally killed each other in the school courtyard and regularly attacked the staff at the rehabilitation center with feral, mob violence -- and the staff kept coming back. And kept helping. And kept saying "none of this is your fault."
I'm in awe. How did they know how to do that?
The end of the book leaves a lot open-ended. We don't see the path Ishmael took to New York, though we know he eventually gets there, and we don't see the life he built for himself later on. Still, I think it's enough, and honestly my five stars are for the "rehabilitation" part of the story. Those people are incredible.