A review by jmiae
The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria by Janine di Giovanni

3.0

This was an informative book in the sense that it provided a deeply personal perspective on what was/is happening in Syria. Although I have a lot of respect for Di Giovanni for the work that she has done in war-torn countries, I am less a fan of her writing and the way she decided to structure this collection of experiences that she had in different cities throughout 2012. Perhaps some of the inconsistency can be considered an editing problem. In any case, the lack of cohesion, the sort of jigsaw puzzle organisation in The Morning They Came for Us was frustrating for me, mainly because the stories she transmitted from the civilians and soldiers she met in Syria are so powerful and gripping, that if they had been built around a firmer rhetorical foundation they would have been that much more informative and constructive. But aside from my criticisms of her writing approach, there is no denying the fact that simply reading this collection (can we call them memoirs?) has engaged me in the Syrian conflict in a way that the news has not been able to over the course of seven years. The images that Di Giovanni conjured in my mind's eye are inextricably linked in a very emotional way to the stories that I read this morning about the assault on Ghouta. There is something to be said about the power of the written word, and its ability to express more effectively than contemporary news outlets, despite their use of heartstring-pulling images and dramatic voice-overs, ever could.