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egoenner's review
3.0
This book is very hard to rate, for me. I was eager to read it because of the topic. Billed as the story of Lara and her family, culminating in her trip to Syria to save her son, I was eager to read about an area of the world I knew nothing about (the Pankisi Gorge) and people I had never heard of (Kists, among others).
I had two problems with this book that made it hard for me to finish. First, it spends far too much (in my opinion) time on history, history of Chechens, history of the Georgians, wars and times both related and unrelated to Lara's story. All of this history, while good to know, was too detailed for me and overtook the story. It read more like a history book than narrative non-fiction.
When the story focused on Lara and her family, when they move to Grozny for example, or when they return to the Pankisi Gorge, and definitely when she travels to Syria, the story is engaging and interesting. The reader shares Lara's confusion about her sons' conversion to Islam and willingness to die for their beliefs. And, I appreciate that Lara and the author avoid giving the reader any simple answers to the 'why' question. I ended the book wanting to know, why, and I think Lara lost both sons without a clear answer to why.
The second reason this book was so difficult was the translation. I read the translator's earlier book and didn't have problems, but here some of the translation made comprehension nearly impossible. For example, "She'd hadn't tried to find out what had happened to him, either" (p. 82). A good copy editor would have helped the book's readability immensely. I often found myself stuck by sentences like the one above and by confusing pronoun use where I didn't know who was who. Some huge jumps in the time line increased my confusion.
Overall, I'm glad I read this book, but it was challenging.
I had two problems with this book that made it hard for me to finish. First, it spends far too much (in my opinion) time on history, history of Chechens, history of the Georgians, wars and times both related and unrelated to Lara's story. All of this history, while good to know, was too detailed for me and overtook the story. It read more like a history book than narrative non-fiction.
When the story focused on Lara and her family, when they move to Grozny for example, or when they return to the Pankisi Gorge, and definitely when she travels to Syria, the story is engaging and interesting. The reader shares Lara's confusion about her sons' conversion to Islam and willingness to die for their beliefs. And, I appreciate that Lara and the author avoid giving the reader any simple answers to the 'why' question. I ended the book wanting to know, why, and I think Lara lost both sons without a clear answer to why.
The second reason this book was so difficult was the translation. I read the translator's earlier book and didn't have problems, but here some of the translation made comprehension nearly impossible. For example, "She'd hadn't tried to find out what had happened to him, either" (p. 82). A good copy editor would have helped the book's readability immensely. I often found myself stuck by sentences like the one above and by confusing pronoun use where I didn't know who was who. Some huge jumps in the time line increased my confusion.
Overall, I'm glad I read this book, but it was challenging.
jbraith's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Xenophobia, and Violence
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