A review by danajoy
The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, Laura L. Sullivan

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

This is one of the most important books I've ever read.

I can't say I knew much about the atrocities that occured in Bosnia just a few years before I was born. It was never taught in my schools (possibly just mentioned in passing while we studied the Holocaust). It is deeply upsetting that I didn't know much at all about this, especially when it all occurred recently. Amra was 16 in 1992, when the Yugoslav Wars came to her home city of Bihać. 

The brutal realities of war are blatant in this book. I wasn't expecting the risk of r*pe to be so blatantly addressed in the opening chapter in a "YA" book. War and l ethnic cleansing aren't shied away from. 

It's very well written. Its a good starting point for education about the war and genocide. I found myself researching places and events every time I put the book down. 

Read this book.

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