Janine di Giovanni

I began to read this book with a different perspective. I was to ask myself at the end of each chapter what I had learned. So I really paid attention and did not allow my mind to wander ..as much. What happened with this "experiment " was that it helped pull the elements of this non- fiction read into a deeper perspective. I learned that I had a lot in common with the writer. I have an alcoholic husband who has stopped drinking therefore causing me to stop drinking. It effects my life as much as it effected hers. And several other similarities. I noted a common thread in women, if not all, war correspondents. They feel invincible. They do not feel fear. They thrive on the adrenaline. They give voice to those who do not have a voice.
The book was good. A lot of Israel, a lot of war and the horrors always associated with war. Friendships are tenuous and short lived. Cut short by bullets, suicide, or burn out.
Extraordinary story. Very revealing. Took guts to put it all out there.… (mais)

This is a good book on the Balkan wars, but not the book that I wanted. I was looking for a general outline of the events in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. This book is much more personal. The style is punchy - short pieces related by individuals caught up in the appalling atrocities of the period. Participants appear in the text with no introduction, with no way of telling who they are or why they are being mentioned. There is no attempt to follow a chronology. But the writing is good; the content is compelling, heart-rending.
By the end I find myself better informed, but still feel a need for more information on the lead up to the events recounted. How could people become so incredibly inhumane to people who had been their neighbours, school friends, fellow workers? But I doubt that I will soon want to return to delve into this era of savagery and incomprehensible brutality.… (mais)