Reviews with content warning for War - Girl

Reviews tagging 'War'

Girl by Edna O'Brien

11 reviews

tyras_bookshelf's review against another edition

This book is obviously very dark and traumatizing as it deals with real life trauma, even if it’s fictionalized. It was really hard to read due to the explicit horror of what happened to these girls. I picked it up to try something new and learn about something I have little knowledge on but I just couldn’t stomach it.

Perhaps it was even a little gratuitous in the author’s description since she (seemingly) has no connection to the real people this happened to. Im making some assumptions without research so there’s that but I found it interesting and potentially problematic that this Irish author is writing Nigerian fictional stories. Race shouldn’t limit what stories you tell but something about it sets me on edge just a bit. Idk, it’s complicated.

And according to some other reviews, O’Brien traveled to Nigeria to interview women and girls victimized by Boca Haram and so there is critique about why she didn’t just do an autobiography or something more factual and I think that’s what I’m getting at to. For this to have been a reality of some many girls, it felt so much like O’Brien was hamming it up to give us this gorey, fantastical story—she could have just given us the unfiltered truth. Or maybe I’m missing the point—it was a gorey and unbelievable thing that occurred but something about this book was just off for me.

Anyway, maybe I’ll try again with this one but also most likely not.

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fiona_claffey_kelly's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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robkil96's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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natashaball's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I read this as part of a book challenge - I wouldn't choose it a second time. Although child abduction and forced marriage is a very important subject that needs to be spoken about more in the news, I'm not sure fiction is the best for this topic. I appreciate that the book is well written, even though a couple of times the protagonist was a bit nonchalent about events that happened to her. However that could be the point seeing as she is still a child.

The return to her family was very upsetting, especially the hatred towards Babby

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laney_reads_22's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I was expecting this story to be emotional, one of triumph and perseverance but the writing was so dull, I felt nothing. Very disappointed, I found myself rushing through the last few chapters to get it over with.

Following her kidnap, school girl Maryam is taken, along with her female classmates to a war camp where they serve as "bush wives" to the extremists waging war over Nigeria. Horrifically abused and subject to religious conversation therapy, Maryam is married to a soldier and falls pregnant. Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, the camp falls under attack by the military and Maryam escapes with her baby and friend. A large section of the book is then dedicated to their journey, before she returns home to find that her father and brother are dead and her mother is shamed by her. All of this should make for a heart wrenching read but some of the most important moments are almost skipped over! Particularly one scene, where the friend she escapes with dies and under extreme hunger and not having seen any other people for weeks, she decides to leave her baby to drown (although seemingly there was no water anywhere as it consistently mentions their thirst???). Literally in the next sentence, the baby is returned to her by some random nomads. The whole thing was utterly bizarre.

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knkoch's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad

2.0

This is a fictional (but researched) account of a schoolgirl captured by the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, both during her captivity and after her escape.

I found this book very challenging. I went in not knowing its subject manner (I usually do this to preserve surprise and discovery), but this was a bit more than shocking to dive into unaware. I proceeded through it very quickly because of the sheer brutality and unimaginable horror of the events Maryam goes through; I wanted to get through it rapidly without lingering. I really wanted to stop reading it at several points, but forced myself to finish.

I'm torn about books like this. On the one hand, it's so important to bear witness to subjects and stories like this because I am in a privileged position simply by being shielded from such horrific adversity by the country of my birth. Even so, it's painful to the point of being damaging. Knowledge of the depths of human depravity (in this case, kidnap, rape, and dehumanization) can take a toll on anyone, and despair does not necessarily lead to change. It's important that fully half of this book is about afterwards; after Maryam is "free", she is still not usually safe, loved, welcomed home, or taken care of. Relief is ambiguous, treacherous, and at best temporary. There's a fascinating scene in the middle where the media and national government celebrate her "freedom" and return in a press conference, and the book grapples with this uneasy balance: powerful figures allude to her suffering, but are uninterested (or unable to support Maryam sufficiently for her eventually divulge) the true, horrible details of her suffering.

This is not a first person narrative, nor was it written by a Nigerian woman who was taken. Edna O'Brien is a white Irish author who researched this experience, traveled to Nigeria, and interviewed several survivors, according to her acknowledgements. I haven't yet looked into commentary outside her take there yet, but it's just worth stating.

I don't think I'd be able to read this again, but heck, I finished it. I stopped partway through Half of a Yellow Sun for the same sort of content that made this difficult to read. I don't say that to imply that muscling my way through this, when I couldn't get through the other, is an improvement. I was deeply emotionally affected by Half of a Yellow Sun, and couldn't bear the pain of its content. I think, having had that experience, I purposefully did not emotionally connect to this as much. I'm trying to hold this as knowledge of the world and experiences others have had to keep a little more distance.

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