I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.

Ishmael Beah is a boy from the country of Sierra Leone, who grows up listening to Run DMC and MC Hammer. One day, when going to a local rap contest, rebels capture the village that he is in, and he is dragged out of his childhood into a child soldier.

The war in itself was caused by the mishandling of the promising diamond industry from the government. Despite the abundance in resource, Sierra Leone ranked dead last in prosperity for some period of time. Even after the coup was done and new leaders were elected, chaos ensued with looting, rape, and lots of murder.

How horrifying is it that children are dragged into the affair of adults? Beah depicts a truly despicable war in which he witnesses the murder of numerous people, is fed mind numbing tablets as food and given recreational drugs to pass the time. Beah recalls how soccer practice in the village quickly turned to guarding a post with an AK-47. To think of the children that did not make it out, thousands of children like Ishmael, is truly saddening.

I read this book when I was in high school - but came back to it as I still think about this book time and time again. It’s often books like these that give me perspective, and remind me that the circumstances that I grew up in are often not comparable to some of the horrifying stories from smaller, invisible conflicts around the globe. To me, this book shows insight and courage throughout, and shows how powerful humans can be.

While this book is absolutely jaw dropping and reflective in so many ways, some question the legitimacy of Beah’s claims. They argue that the timeline of his story does not match what UNICEF has marked in their books. Supposedly what Beah reflects as a two year period was no more than two months in real time, and the gruesome killings he witnessed do not check out. This begs the question - does this invalidate this memoir, or should we simply appreciate the perspective in which Beah tells this story? Does the truth of a memoir really matter, or is it more the way one perceives it to be?

Overall Rating: 8/10