Once I started reading this book, I couldn’t put it down. I was scared to leave Ana alone. I coudn’t leave her alone in the midst of a war. I couldn’t leave her alone when she was by herself in an unknown village. I couln’t imagine leaving her alone in NewYork city where she was confused and not able to decide if it was a good idea to go back to Croatia or stay there with her new american parents, “americanised” sister and live her “americanised” life. 

Girl At War is a book that you cannot stop reading once you start.

This novel is the journey of ten year old Ana Juric through the war that shattered her childhood, her dreams and her family, just like it shattered the windows of the buildings in Zagreb, Croatia. 

For those of us who have been fortunate enough not to witness something like what Ana and her family and every other family which has been through wars and rehabilitation, this novel can be a gut wrenching experience. The hard hitting realities of war and how it just takes away everything you had or you dreamt of having is so well portrayed in this book. All of it happens just like that. Sometimes amidst sirens and sometimes amidst gunshots. 

This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. 

War is cruel. War is unfair. War is bad. These could be the words of the ten year old Ana Juric, born in Croatia and raised (for half her life) in USA. A ten year old displaced from her family, her friend, her familiar town and everything that was familiar to her. A 20 year old coming back to those lands and scared to ring the doorbell of her childhood friend’s house.  

Some questions that hit me hard reading this novel: 

Passing through the same forest where her parents were shot dead, the village where she thought she killed a soldier and then finding the cement block which had the handprints of her parents and her 9 year old self. Is this something that can give closure to the pain that you have been carrying around even while pretending to be fine? Or do these familiarities instill more pain? 

Can words like war, starved, fear etc mean the same for a person who has  literally been through it as for someone who has only heard about these things? 

How do migrating birds find their way each season? Do they come back hoping for something new or do the familiarities of the place they left behind make them feel at ease? 

Is home the feeling of familiarity or the feeling of safety and security? What if you had to choose between the two? 

This is a book that leaves a void that cannot be filled. 

Do read this book.

Please follow and like us: