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asiakota 's review for:
American War
by Omar El Akkad
This book had a very interesting concept with an apt modern-day relevance - however, it missed the mark by trying to be too many things at once which diluted the main premise of the book. For me the book felt like part hunger games, part war drama, part historical fiction, sprinkled with some environmentalism. All these elements seemed to blend together inconsistently at different instances making the story a bit confusing. The fictional historical pretense of the civil war was not well fleshed out, making it difficult to process the different political players involved and the reasons behind their actions.
The main character got progressively less likeable and while I can understand how various traumatic events in the story contributed to the darker side of the heroine, the fuzzy political contexts made it very challenging to root for her. It just wasn't clear what she (or anyone for that matter) was fighting for.
Additionally, with the book being written in 2017, I would have anticipated that more current societal issues between "Red" and "Blue" states would have emerged as reasons for social discord and a civil war leading to separatist movements. The geopolitical tensions seem to only be connected to environmentalism and all modern-day issues (like racism and religion) got seemingly resolved by 2075 in this dystopian world, because they were non-existent in this book.
All in all, I would have either wanted a bit more from this book, or a bit less but more focused on specific parts of the story.
The main character got progressively less likeable and while I can understand how various traumatic events in the story contributed to the darker side of the heroine, the fuzzy political contexts made it very challenging to root for her. It just wasn't clear what she (or anyone for that matter) was fighting for.
Additionally, with the book being written in 2017, I would have anticipated that more current societal issues between "Red" and "Blue" states would have emerged as reasons for social discord and a civil war leading to separatist movements. The geopolitical tensions seem to only be connected to environmentalism and all modern-day issues (like racism and religion) got seemingly resolved by 2075 in this dystopian world, because they were non-existent in this book.
All in all, I would have either wanted a bit more from this book, or a bit less but more focused on specific parts of the story.