book review #1 a long way gone

Book Review
Why or why not you should read the book a long way gone By: Ishmael Beah

For the Reading circles this semester I chose to read the book long way gone By: Ishmael Beah. I wanted to read this book because we had previously in school been learning about kids in Africa and I had liked the idea that I could help but I wanted to know a little bit more though. I wanted to know from one kid what it was like. Then I saw this book and it was perfect. This, like many other books, starts of slow. For me it was hard to struggle though the first part of the book. This part mainly just talked about his life before the war. I think I should have appreciated it because I didn’t know what was going to come.
If you are at all squeamish I highly recommend Do Not read this book. This is not the book that start’s of happy and end’s with a kiss. This book with shock you, make you think different of people and what they can do. I also say that, If you are under the age of 13 do not read it. It has a lot of adult content. That is because the whole story is true. Knowing that the whole story was true made me re-think my life and my priorities. It made me really appreciate what I had.
I liked this book. It really made me open my eyes to the problems around us. There are so many countries that a child will grow up and have to kill his neighbors just because the “Government” said so. This is what happened in along way gone.
I have seen so many people come in and talk to us about other countries but its not the same as reading exactly what happened in someone’s life. I am surprised that Ishmael Beah had enough sanity to write a book about his struggles. After the amount of horrible trials he went though I don’t think that many people would, first, be able to get over it. Second, be able to have to think about every detail that happened. And third, write a book about it. The amount of courage and understanding that this boy had made me really want to help other people not as fortunate as me. And I think that, that is the key reason that he wrote this book in the first place.

Besides the gruesome detail and the sorrow and death. This is actually a well written book. You can tell that he though of every detail when writing. From Scent, to sound, even to how everything felt when he touched it. Sometimes when reading this I could almost imagine and feel how hard it must have been for him. This was an amazing book and I recommend it to anyone who, like me, wants to help.

-Ashlen Sepulveda