Girl at War
Sara Novi
Little, Brown
How do children survive the atrocity of war with their humanity intact? Ten-year-old Ana seems to gaze unblinkingly as the Balkan war invades her childhood and family life collapses around her, but her story is so beautifully written it lifts the reader from one page to the next, with every so often a particularly expressive phrase that needs to be re-read and savoured.
Escaping to the US, where people are uncomfortable hearing the details about her past, Ana gradually sanitises the facts and eventually lies in an attempt to fit in.
Even as you ache for the child Ana who didn’t indulge in self-pity but stoically got on with life, there is a sense that she is buoyed by the love of her close-knit family and friends from her formative years. She is a survivor.
– Linda Curling