Girl at War in Around the World in 80 Books

Apr 14, 2018 Lindsey Z rated it really liked it

I was drawn to the story this novel tells because of my personal connections to both Serbians and Bosnians and how their lives were directly and indirectly affected by the Yugoslavian War in the 1990s. I had never read about the tragedy of this war from a Croatian perspective and was seeking a more complete story. Novic crafts an unexpected narrative: after she’s separated from her family, 10 year old Ana is forced to become a child soldier for a counter military group in Croatia in order to sur I was drawn to the story this novel tells because of my personal connections to both Serbians and Bosnians and how their lives were directly and indirectly affected by the Yugoslavian War in the 1990s. I had never read about the tragedy of this war from a Croatian perspective and was seeking a more complete story. Novic crafts an unexpected narrative: after she’s separated from her family, 10 year old Ana is forced to become a child soldier for a counter military group in Croatia in order to survive. She learns how to efficiently and rhythmically--a rhythm that will, in fact, haunt her for years afterwards--load bullets into assault rifles. She loses her capacity to speak for a long time after she ends up in the world alone and we experience the war through her mute lens; just like Ana, I felt overstimulated and confused by the swiftness with which life continued on around her when all she needed was an opportunity to pause and reflect. But she’s given no such opportunity, as one usually isn’t amidst war, and her life becomes purely about staying alive. She eventually makes it to the United States, and the narrative takes on two separate timelines at this point: one in which she’s settled in the US but still haunted by her past and longing to reconnect with what used to be her mother country, and one in which she’s a child soldier in Sarajevo.

Told from Ana’s first person point of view, Novic offers a seering look at how war, more than anything, destroys innocent lives and inflicts enduring trauma upon masses of people. She brings to light a handful of insightful considerations of not only how war is all-consuming and ignorant to its destructive nature but also of how humans cope with seeing and experiencing death, how ordinary people become soldiers and fighters during wartime, what they consider to be home and how they construct those notions psychologically and emotionally, and why, despite all of this immense loss and suffering, humans still want to love and connect and hope. She makes this illuminating observation: “As a side effect of modern warfare, we had the peculiar privilege of watching the destruction of our country on television.” This type of commentary is sprinkled throughout the text and this one comment in particular made me really consider my own privilege as an American; apart from the act of 9/11, I’ve never had to watch my own country at war on its own soil, either on TV or in person. I can hardly imagine what it’s like to go to bed each night worried about air raids and bombings and entrapment and death. Girl at War was an imperative reminder for me of not only how cruel and selfish war can be, but also of how damn lucky I’ve been to have grown up without ever really knowing the truths that Ana has no choice but to discover and live through.

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