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bibliotequeish's review against another edition
4.0
It's 2014- Willem is being dropped off at a correctional camp.
Assured he will be safe, his mother and step father drive away.
It's 1901- The private writings of Sarah van der Watt, forced to leave her home wither her 6 year old son, prisoners in a concentration camp.
From 1901 we follow generation after generation back to 2014.
A powerful book beautifully written. The kind of story that will stay with you and make you question the driving force behind peoples actions.
This books folds into itself in such a beautiful way, lives and experiences effecting the lives and experiences of the next generation.
Assured he will be safe, his mother and step father drive away.
It's 1901- The private writings of Sarah van der Watt, forced to leave her home wither her 6 year old son, prisoners in a concentration camp.
From 1901 we follow generation after generation back to 2014.
A powerful book beautifully written. The kind of story that will stay with you and make you question the driving force behind peoples actions.
This books folds into itself in such a beautiful way, lives and experiences effecting the lives and experiences of the next generation.
tonimarshall84's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
rikki_jade's review against another edition
4.0
This was an excellent read. Written in two parts - on focusing on the Boer War and written in diary form and the other in post-Apartheid South Africa (with a focus on a kind of reform school/camp for young boys), I found it informative, compelling and heart-wrenching. I wasn't as 'hooked' by the first half, but I felt like I was learning about something that I had no idea about, but I could hardly put it down in the second half even at times I felt like I had to read with one eye closed I was so horrified by what was happening.
girljames's review against another edition
5.0
I cared about Willem, a 21st century teen checking in to a sinister-sounding camp, by the end of the short prologue and couldn't wait for him to come back. But then Sarah's story in part one - a 1901 Boer housewife in a concentration camp - was so gripping I couldn't put that down either. Totally compelling writing. I think history is so important and LOVE work like this that tries to understand the present by unraveling the past. The two stories seem initially unconnected except for both centering on white South Africans, but you see by the end how the final plot points are the (sometimes literal) inheritance of the first. I learned about a part of the world I don't know much about, and reflected on white nationalism and its relationship to homophobia. But it didn't feel like hard work to read - the style is poetic and delightful, with plentiful South African colloquialisms to look up, and the story is just so gripping.
Content warning for sexual assault (although not explicitly described, thank god) and homophobic violence.
Content warning for sexual assault (although not explicitly described, thank god) and homophobic violence.
snoakes7001's review against another edition
5.0
You Will Be Safe Here starts with Willem, a teenage boy, being dropped off at New Dawn Safari Camp by his parents. This short chapter is a tantalising glimpse of events that occur later on in the book. Without giving any detail about what actually goes on at the camp, it leaves the reader with a strong sense of foreboding.
The story then goes back in time, to 1901 and the Boer War. This section takes the form of Sarah van der Watt's diary which documents day to day life on the family farm as the British, or khakis, draw near. Sarah's husband Samuel is away fighting and she hopefully addressed the diary to him, not knowing if he will ever read it. Eventually a British soldier turns up, carrying a letter saying the family is to be evacuated.
I've often heard that it was the British who invented concentration camps, but never knew any more than that. Sarah's story brings the horror of these places down to a human scale. Admittedly they weren't the death camps of WW2 (the Nazis took something cruel and inhumane and made it pure evil), but they were still overcrowded, underfunded, and poorly run. Internees were given tiny inadequate rations and the families of men engaged in fighting even less. Sanitation was poor and typhoid and dysentery were rife. Children died at a rate of 50 a day.
In part two of the book we jump forward in time to 1976 and a teaching assistant called Rayna Brandt. It soon becomes clear that Rayna is Willem's grandmother and eventually we are back at the gates of New Dawn a quasi-military organisation that promises to make men out of boys. What follows is also based on a true story which makes it even more shocking.
The two connected narratives neatly bookend either end of a century with the two different camps - neither of which are anything like the safe places they initially pretend to be.
A cracking read that teaches you something along the way.
The story then goes back in time, to 1901 and the Boer War. This section takes the form of Sarah van der Watt's diary which documents day to day life on the family farm as the British, or khakis, draw near. Sarah's husband Samuel is away fighting and she hopefully addressed the diary to him, not knowing if he will ever read it. Eventually a British soldier turns up, carrying a letter saying the family is to be evacuated.
I've often heard that it was the British who invented concentration camps, but never knew any more than that. Sarah's story brings the horror of these places down to a human scale. Admittedly they weren't the death camps of WW2 (the Nazis took something cruel and inhumane and made it pure evil), but they were still overcrowded, underfunded, and poorly run. Internees were given tiny inadequate rations and the families of men engaged in fighting even less. Sanitation was poor and typhoid and dysentery were rife. Children died at a rate of 50 a day.
In part two of the book we jump forward in time to 1976 and a teaching assistant called Rayna Brandt. It soon becomes clear that Rayna is Willem's grandmother and eventually we are back at the gates of New Dawn a quasi-military organisation that promises to make men out of boys. What follows is also based on a true story which makes it even more shocking.
The two connected narratives neatly bookend either end of a century with the two different camps - neither of which are anything like the safe places they initially pretend to be.
A cracking read that teaches you something along the way.
mazza's review against another edition
5.0
"“You will be safe here” – a phrase which, while it offers so much, is often heavy with false hope and littered with absent promises. It is entirely understandable why Damian Barr decided to title his emotionally charged first novel this, the words first being told to a diarist who is documenting her tremendous ordeal in Boer War concentration camp. Barr’s novel is about that hope, or lack thereof, and the brutality of just what humans can inflict upon one another. It is about connections, those which bind us and the petty differences that set us apart. It is about living with the consequences of society’s actions, and about understanding history, learning about the role our ancestors had to play in such misery."
Full review on STORGY here
Full review on STORGY here
tommooney's review against another edition
3.0
A big ol' heap of smack-bang-averageness. I enjoyed and appreciated the first 100 pages in the refugee camp with Sarah but very quickly lost interest once the novel started skipping around.
claire60's review against another edition
5.0
Was totally gripped by this book, read it in two sittings in one day, it is ha--rowing in places and yet fascinating as it explores the violent history of South Africa. From the Boer War and the British concentration camps alongside the scorched earth policy of burning farms to the ground and imprisoning women and children. The first half of the book vividly brings this to life through the story of Sarah and her son Frederick. The second half brings us to 2010 when young Willem is imprisoned in a repurposed camp run by white South Africans who believe they will rise again and right the wrongs of the Boer wars. Also how these camps are used to 'straighten' out any boy thought to be gay. An important story with the frustration and impotence of the women coming through. What is also clear in the later part of the book is how Black people were also imprisoned in camps during the Boer war but there are no carefully kept records of their history. An interesting story well told that helps to illuminate part of the South African experience and also the brutality of the British 'empire'.