false 2 15 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 05 09:33:37 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 05 09:34:43 -0700 2007
Written by Ishmael Beah, a now grown man that fought in his childhood as a boy soldier in his native Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier holds the readers attention from a global perspective, but other than that, it seems rather bland and uninteresting. What I mean by a global perspective is that it opened this American’s eyes to some of the more intricate details of the civil war taking place in Sierra Leone, but the memoir section of the book I could have lived without. Had the book focused more on some of the reasons behind the strife in Sierra Leone, perhaps I would have closed the book with a more favorable impression in mind.

The book walks the reader through the progression of Beah’s life in the forests of Sierra Leone. Much of the book focuses on the friendships that Beah is able to form with some of the other boy soldiers that he is fighting with. The story outlines friendship amongst the boys that come from a world of having nothing and are simply placed into a position of picking up a weapon to fight for a warlord who brainwashes them at the hands of free guns, drugs and a false sense of glory.

The travesties that Beah and his companion boy soldiers along with other soldiers commit against the towns and townspeople that they encounter as they cross the country side are remarkable. However, what I found even more remarkable is that Beah writes about the nightmares he has about the acts he committed but makes no real reference to why he feels any different today than he did when he committed the atrocities.

The book finally picks up some momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book when Beah and some of the other boy soldiers are brought to a camp established to help attempt to rehabilitate the boys from blood thirsty warriors into something more civilized and humane.

The book ends with Beah outlining how he was given the opportunity to come to America to speak with the United Nations and sub-councils relative to children and war and his unique individual experience within Sierra Leone. Though it addresses superficially some of the stories he was able to share with children from other parts of the world relative to their wartime experiences, the section is rather sparse in terms of any real meaning or discussions.

It would have been far better to have had perhaps a more personal reconciliation or reflection by Beah in terms of his past and perhaps even a bit of a foreshadowing of what is to come with Beah's life. The story seems to be intent on talking about the killing, the blood, the smoking of marijuana and snorting of brown-brown (a mixture of gunpowder and cocaine), yet the story does not seem to have enough personal reflection from Beah to give the book a personal touch.

The writing in the book is also very choppy at times which adds to the poor perception of the book that I have. There are also plenty of times within the book that the topics jump around too much and/or leave the reader simply wondering what else might have happened in a particular section.
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