Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

You Don't Know What War Is by Yeva Skalietska

1 review

james1star's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

TW: mentions of war and the psychological trauma of this on children but I would totally 100% recommend this book. 

You Don’t Know What War Is is the diary entries of Yeva Skalietska, a twelve year old girl caught up in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. We follow her for around three months and - being a diary - is very personal, honest and emotional. Her home is in the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the border and the first city to be invaded with the first day of war greatly impacting Yeva, her friends and family, and everyone else on the country. It’s incredibly sad reading and makes me angry knowing all this sadness and destruction is being done in vain. It’s bad enough happening to combatants on the battlefield but attacking innocent civilians in their city is so horrible. Adding to this, reading via the eyes of a child makes it even more heartbreaking - there are parts where she tells how schools and kindergartens are being blown up (one that survived WW2), homes, city monuments, shops, even pharmacies being targeted with people just needing to get their medication. It’s completely innocent children who just want to go to school and be with their friends, not armed soldiers. It’s honestly disgusting how such events can still be happening, haven’t we learned enough from the past?

Whilst there is a lot of saddens, hope is also very much prevalent throughout. Yeva was ‘lucky’ (opposed to some, she is not in grand scheme) as was able to travel across Ukraine, into Hungary and onto Dublin, Ireland with her grandmother Iryna, many people helped them. Her diary/story was picked up by channel 4 news journalists and this heavily helped her, with many follow-on steps leading to her diary being published and shared. This external help is great and in many ways this book shows the gratefulness Yeva (and many Ukrainians) have in response to the help other countries have shown with military, financial and humanitarian aid, accepting refugees and others. That being said, the Ukrainian spirit has not once been dulled and this is something to admire, in the face of such power they are staying as strong as they can. No matter where across the glob her citizens have fled to, Ukrainians aren’t backing down in the slightest. Russia (putin) will not win. 

What I think is the best part of this book is how as the war’s gone on (over two hears at time of writing this), we as a global community have become desensitised to an extent of the numbers about those fleeing their homes, being injured and killed and otherwise unjustly caught up. But by reading Yeva’s story it gives a voice to a number with her friend’s accounts helping to highlight how everyone’s experience is different. 

Whilst it’s not well written, this is totally understandable as Yeva is twelve, a child, and caught up in the midst of war. Her city was being constantly bombed but she was able to write down her thoughts, feelings and day’s events - first for herself as a way to cope but later to share to us - showing immense strength. In some ways I’d have preferred more details of her time still in Kharkiv and Ukraine but overall it’s well paced and compiled. Some reviewers have argued her focus on the help of the reporters and the ‘west’ are overbearing but personally I found it balanced and others have stated her story led to people helping refugees financially and giving up their homes to house people too which is no doubt a good consequence. I’d classify this as ‘anyone’ in terms of reading age but it’s published and marketed as a children’s book so I also understand if having basic language with short entries and pictures/text messages to break up text keeping the (younger) reader engaged. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...