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A review by barefootmegz
I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached
5.0
I was in school when the war between Lebanon and Israel broke out. We had a history teacher who ensured that we knew day-by-day what was happening – and also taught us that Lebanon had been in a long civil war not many years before.
But it was still just a war in a different country that didn’t reeeeally affect us.
I Remember Beirut brings it home. Abirached's bold drawings makes this war feel real – and isn’t that why books are so wonderful? It takes us places we have never been. It fosters our empathy.
This is a different war story to any that I have read before. It really shows what it is like to grow up in times of warfare. The author remembers childlike things, like reading books with her mother and the old Kit Kat wrappers, but then it is superimposed by the kinds of memories not normal to childhoods, like a parent’s car riddled with bullet holes.
Little memories: her father’s depression. Her brother’s shrapnel collection. Going without necessities.
Big events: having to stay at school when it was too dangerous to return home. Their many evacuations. Her own PTSD.
And with every turn of the page the knowledge that something bad (or rather, worse) could be happening.
There are parts of this graphic novel that are so funny and so heart-warming. I loved seeing Abirached growing up. But the ending drives home the fact that war is eternally damaging. I would like to see UNICEF adopt this book, and I would like it to be required reading for anyone running for political office. And I would definitely like to see high school kids read this – it is quick and wonderful and I know that even non-readers will engulf it.
I received an eARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
But it was still just a war in a different country that didn’t reeeeally affect us.
I Remember Beirut brings it home. Abirached's bold drawings makes this war feel real – and isn’t that why books are so wonderful? It takes us places we have never been. It fosters our empathy.
This is a different war story to any that I have read before. It really shows what it is like to grow up in times of warfare. The author remembers childlike things, like reading books with her mother and the old Kit Kat wrappers, but then it is superimposed by the kinds of memories not normal to childhoods, like a parent’s car riddled with bullet holes.
Little memories: her father’s depression. Her brother’s shrapnel collection. Going without necessities.
Big events: having to stay at school when it was too dangerous to return home. Their many evacuations. Her own PTSD.
And with every turn of the page the knowledge that something bad (or rather, worse) could be happening.
There are parts of this graphic novel that are so funny and so heart-warming. I loved seeing Abirached growing up. But the ending drives home the fact that war is eternally damaging. I would like to see UNICEF adopt this book, and I would like it to be required reading for anyone running for political office. And I would definitely like to see high school kids read this – it is quick and wonderful and I know that even non-readers will engulf it.
I received an eARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.