A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
Have you ever felt that your life was an endless cycle of failure and that you were being held back by an impossible obstacle? I have and I am sure that many of my readers have as well. However, there is no such thing as an impossible obstacle. No obstacle in life is not able to be overcome. "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah is an entrancing and overall fantastic memoir of his childhood during the Seierra Leone civil war. This memoir is touching and really captures the things that haunted Ishmael Beah for many years after he finally escaped the gruesome civil war. Much like other memoirs, he brushes on harsh realities that are going on around the world. However, he makes his own story unique because of his incredible style of writing and his use of another language mixed in with English. This memoir is definitely a novel that should be taught in schools and required to read.
The story starts off with Beah and his friends as children in their village. They went to another village for a talent show and when they returned, their fellow villagers were massacred and the village itself was burned to the ground. They then being their incredible Journey through Seierra Leone and Beah tells the story of how he became a child soldier and how he moved on after escaping the harsh reality that was his life. This book is incredibly unique as not many people write memoirs about their times as a child soldier. In fact, only a small percentage of child soldiers live past their young adult years. The rest are too traumatized to tell their tale. Ishmael Beah, however, made it his life goal to help other children and protect them from going through what he went through. His tale is truly inspirational and heartbreaking as he takes you on a journey through his war-torn home country.
Beah's writing style is also very unique, as are his language and tone. He goes very deep into detail and his tone changes frequently throughout the memoir. Not only does he bring passion to his writing, but he pulls you into the novel with the fluidity of his writing and the flow of his sentences. When he joins the war, he only just begins to understand how terrible and cruel people can be to one another. Overall, I think this is a fantastic memoir that touches on very relevant subjects and I could reccomend this to anyone that enjoys a good, hard read.
Have you ever felt that your life was an endless cycle of failure and that you were being held back by an impossible obstacle? I have and I am sure that many of my readers have as well. However, there is no such thing as an impossible obstacle. No obstacle in life is not able to be overcome. "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah is an entrancing and overall fantastic memoir of his childhood during the Seierra Leone civil war. This memoir is touching and really captures the things that haunted Ishmael Beah for many years after he finally escaped the gruesome civil war. Much like other memoirs, he brushes on harsh realities that are going on around the world. However, he makes his own story unique because of his incredible style of writing and his use of another language mixed in with English. This memoir is definitely a novel that should be taught in schools and required to read.
The story starts off with Beah and his friends as children in their village. They went to another village for a talent show and when they returned, their fellow villagers were massacred and the village itself was burned to the ground. They then being their incredible Journey through Seierra Leone and Beah tells the story of how he became a child soldier and how he moved on after escaping the harsh reality that was his life. This book is incredibly unique as not many people write memoirs about their times as a child soldier. In fact, only a small percentage of child soldiers live past their young adult years. The rest are too traumatized to tell their tale. Ishmael Beah, however, made it his life goal to help other children and protect them from going through what he went through. His tale is truly inspirational and heartbreaking as he takes you on a journey through his war-torn home country.
Beah's writing style is also very unique, as are his language and tone. He goes very deep into detail and his tone changes frequently throughout the memoir. Not only does he bring passion to his writing, but he pulls you into the novel with the fluidity of his writing and the flow of his sentences. When he joins the war, he only just begins to understand how terrible and cruel people can be to one another. Overall, I think this is a fantastic memoir that touches on very relevant subjects and I could reccomend this to anyone that enjoys a good, hard read.
