A review by msjoanna
Say You're One of Them, by Uwem Akpan

4.0

These stories are so powerful that I could only read this book in short bits interspersed with other reading. It's almost impossible to believe that this is a debut collection. All of the stories in this book are told from the perspective of children, mostly in the seven to thirteen age range. The horror of the stories is revealed slowly as the child begins to realize (at least in part) what is happening. His shorter works are actually much better than the two novella-length pieces in this collection, and I'd recommend starting with those and only moving on to the longer ones if you still want more of these stories. All of the stories are rich in the small details that bring the events to life--descriptions of how hungry children sniff glue to ward off hunger pains, the reverance given to a motorcycle, the reaction of a Muslim boy to TV images. Generally, the narrators were somewhat cold and detached from the tales being told. This helped to make the horrific topics readable, but also made the longer stories less effective. In a short story, the detached voice seemed to work to contain the power of the story, but in a novella-length work, it left this reader too distanced to develop emotional attachment to the characters.

Overall, the book is definitely a way to feel the emotional and human reality of some of the tragedy and violence in Africa, but it's hard to say that I exactly recommend this book as I found it so troubling.