jjohnwendell 's review for:

Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
4.0

I loved the exploration of humanity - both its light and dark sides - within this book and thought Iweala did a fantastic job showing that humanity remains even in some of the darkest, most desperate circumstances. The story told here gives a snapshot perspective of a child soldier, without much context of the larger war provided. The narrative is a bit uneven (you can tell this is a first novel), but I found the story and themes fascinating and well-constructed. I also found the anchoring of the story in the perspective of the child quite powerful. Overall, I thought it was a great read!