Book Review - Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala

***THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN PLOT SPOLIERS***

Of all the horrific, exploitative, monstrous things you could write about, I don't know how many things could be worse than child soldiers. This barbaric practice is exactly what is dealt with in Beasts of No Nation. The book tells the story of a young boy named Agu, who lives in a village in an unnamed African country that has just broken out in civil war. The government has retreated from his village, and as the novel opens we see the rebels rampaging through the villages, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.

When I first lifted the book, it took me a good few pages to get used to the prose and the way it is written. It is written in first person narrative, from Agu's point of view. He speaks in English, but the English is a realistic, second language version, and as a result provides a level of authenticity along with a level of acclimatising! There is a brutal introduction in the second chapter to the violence in the novel, which is not for the faint-hearted. Agu is forced to really join the army - much different to the expectations of army he had - and everything that entails, including killing people. The description of him killing for the first time is heartbreaking and vile. The most hard-hitting point was possibly where we were introduced to the commandant's sexual abuse of the boys. This book serves to disturb.

"I will be old man before the war is over. I am knowing I am no more child so if this war is ending I cannot be going back to do child thing."

You feel trapped for Agu, and feel his desperation as he is a young boy trying to deal with situations most adults would not be able to cope with. He is vulnerable and taken advantage of, and it's a cruel reminder of how humans can exploit the innocent and the weak. The most interesting dichotomy of the whole book is the style in which it is written versus its subject matter - this childlike voice, written in staggered and simplistic English (even the font and size of the print in the book harks back to a children's book) versus dealing with child sexual abuse, child soldiers, imprisonment, murder, war, and everything else that goes along with these.

It is definitely one of the hardest, yet one of the most successful and difficult books I have ever read and it will stay with me for an age.

Overall score - 5/5