bob_muller 's review for:

American War by Omar El Akkad

5.0

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American War is an amazing book, on many levels. The character story is wonderfully drawn, though the characters are not "likable" in any real sense; they are real. The science fiction story is a work of art, extrapolating the dystopian future from the current state of America and imagining what a new civil war would be like in the context of climate change and warming. The deeper story critiques where America is and what it has done in the present world, as a parallel universe; it winds up with a clear warning about what it means to be American and what it means to be targeted by Americans, and what results of that. El Akkad has true insight into this world of war and hatred carried through generations and conveys it well.