What a beautiful, touching story. I work with Somali refugees on a daily basis, so I found this story particularly interesting. I was able to connect with a lot of the traditions and ways of thinking in this book after working with my students. I was able to pick out some of the Somali words in the story and apply it back to my work. Some of the words I even recognized.

Living in an area with a high population of African immigrants, the information about the drug Khat was useful, because I learned not only is an issue in Somalia, but it is becoming an issue here in our city with all of the refugees.

This book was very powerful. Her traveling experiences were incredible. I can't imagine trying to get half way across the world to try and find my mother and family in such a war-torn country and not even knowing if I would be allowed to enter the country, yet safely. I am looking forward to reading Dirie's previous book about how she was able to escape Somalia and become a U.N. Ambassador as well as a super model. It sounds fascinating. Her work against Female Genital Mutilation is also to be commended, though I wish there would have been more about this in the story.

The writing in this book was decent, but not perfect. It was obvious that Dirie is not a native English speaker, but that was part of the charm of the book for me. ( )