Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles

Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles
Historical Fiction

Adair Colley and her family have managed to escape being pulled in to the Civil War for a few years before the militia comes to her home, arrests her father, tries to find her brother, and when they cannot, set the house on fire. Adair and her sisters leave the house with just a few personal belongings to try and find their father. In to enemy territory, she inquires about her father and instead is denounced as a spy and sent to jail without her sisters.

For each section of this book, it felt like the author was going to make that part the main part of the novel and I always hoped that it wouldn't be. About half way through the book, when Adair finally got out of jail, I realized I was so bored with the book that I decided not to continue with it. I couldn't tell if Adair's emotions were real or not, which bothered me, and I found that I just couldn't connect with her, so I didn't care what happened. I'm not a huge Civil War fan which could be part of the problem, but even if this took place in a different time I don't think I would be any more interested in it.

First Line: "It was the third year of the war and by now there was hardly anybody left in the country except the women and the children."

Rating:
(1.5/5)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Memoir

On what seemed like a normal trip with his friends outside his home village of Mattru Jong, Sierra Leone, the rebels come into his village and start killing anything that moves. When he thinks it is safe, Ishmael and his friends head back to his Mattru Jong to search for the families but find only bodies littering the street. When they can't find their families, the group of boys search for food from nearby villages. They quickly learn that groups of boys are looked upon suspiciously because that's what the rebel forces travel as.

As they travel village to village, they receive help from unlikely sources and see more violence and death than any child should. Eventually soldiers bring the remaining boys into a village and promise them safety. Ishmael watches these soldiers clean their guns, take drugs, and watch Rambo before going out to kill rebels. When the soldiers lose too many men, they pose an ultimatum to the village. Either join us and fight or leave the village. At the age of 13, Ishmael becomes a soldier.

The story follows Ishmael as he lives the nightmare of war and then his rehabilitation. Ishmael's story is sad but it draws you in and holds your attention for the entire duration.

The majority of the book was explaining Ishmael's journey before he became a soldier. I was interested in learning about how he was rehabilitated but found that not enough of the novel focused on this. The ending left me hanging a bit too. Though it did make me look up Ishmael online.

Despite the fact that the book didn't go into as much detail as I would have liked, I couldn't put it down. I was concerned for Ishmael's well being and hoped that him and his family would be ok. It's great to see that Ishmael is trying to help other kids who have gone through what he has and bring this story to the world.

First Line: "There are all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it were happening in a faraway and different land."

Rating:

(4.5/5)