Girl At War
By Sara Novic
Random House May 2015
320 pages
From the library
Croatia in 1991 is a war zone. Ana Juric is ten years old and her life is ordered by both air raids drills and the normalcy of being a proud big sister and occasionally rebellious daughter. As with many families in many wars, the Juric family is forever altered by tragedy. Ten years later, Ana is living in New York and going to college. She avoids talking about the war, until one day she finds that she cannot hide her past any longer. She needs answers about the country and the people she left behind. Ana sets out on a journey back home to Croatia to face what happened to her all those years ago.
Dual timelines work really well for this story. You know from the jacket description that Ana will make it to New York, but the writing is so taut that you will fear for her safety as she is faced with the horrors of war. There was one scene in particular where I am almost certain I started sweating from fear for Ana and her family. One would think that by now, we would understand just how horrifying war can be. You will certainly not be able to forget it after reading this book.
While some moments in the present feel unnecessary and even clunky, it is also the place where Ana decides just what she should be. As someone who remembers the events of a foreign war with stunning clarity, what is her responsibility to those who died and to her former country? Can she ever truly fit into a world of malls and bowling nights when she remembers bombed out buildings and child soldiers?
Girl At War is a stunning debut. I'm still thinking about the characters weeks after finishing the book. The writing is nimble and sparse because the devastation of war and the uncertainty of its aftermath are more than sufficient to imbue every page with feeling. This book deserves a place alongside fictional portrayals such as A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and memoirs like Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Home.
Dual timelines work really well for this story. You know from the jacket description that Ana will make it to New York, but the writing is so taut that you will fear for her safety as she is faced with the horrors of war. There was one scene in particular where I am almost certain I started sweating from fear for Ana and her family. One would think that by now, we would understand just how horrifying war can be. You will certainly not be able to forget it after reading this book.
While some moments in the present feel unnecessary and even clunky, it is also the place where Ana decides just what she should be. As someone who remembers the events of a foreign war with stunning clarity, what is her responsibility to those who died and to her former country? Can she ever truly fit into a world of malls and bowling nights when she remembers bombed out buildings and child soldiers?
Girl At War is a stunning debut. I'm still thinking about the characters weeks after finishing the book. The writing is nimble and sparse because the devastation of war and the uncertainty of its aftermath are more than sufficient to imbue every page with feeling. This book deserves a place alongside fictional portrayals such as A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and memoirs like Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Home.
