Janine di Giovanni

War correspondents have one of the hardest jobs - go where the bombs and bullets are flying and report about all the misery and pain. And Jeanine Di Giovanni is one of the veterans in that.

I've never read a book by her before although I know that I had seen a few of her articles. She had been everywhere - and that gives her a unique perspective at the first year of the Syrian war. And she uses it to write this book - and show that things do not change. Way too often when she describes a show more situation she compares it to what happened in Bosnia. Or in Iraq. It is heartbreaking to see the same mistakes happening again - and realizing that people are people no matter where - evil and good exist in every war, in every country.

The book is a mix between personal stories and official reports. It makes it a bit repetitive in the first part of the story - but then the style settles and gets very readable. The horrors and the misery and the hopelessness leak from every page - people are tortured sometimes without a reason, sometimes for what they believe. There is no winner in that first year of the war - the author ends up riding both with the Assad forces and with the Free Army - seeing the conflict from both sides. But she does not just report the war itself - she reports the lives of the ones that are the most vulnerable - the children, the women, the people that cannot defend themselves. In a culture where being a virgin is the only way to have a future, the men, the same men that will require virginity from their brides, are raping, ensuring that they are destroying lives even when they are not killing.

It is a hard book to read - a lot of the torture descriptions are graphical and you can hear the voices behind them. So are the stories of ruined lives and deaths - both of locals and of other journalists. It is not a book you want to read and yet it is a book that needs to be read. Because humanity is doomed to repeat the same mistakes until everyone realizes that this cannot continue. show less

I began to read this book with a different perspective. I was to ask myself at the end of each chapter what I had learned. So I really paid attention and did not allow my mind to wander ..as much. What happened with this "experiment " was that it helped pull the elements of this non- fiction read into a deeper perspective. I learned that I had a lot in common with the writer. I have an alcoholic husband who has stopped drinking therefore causing me to stop drinking. It effects my life as show more much as it effected hers. And several other similarities. I noted a common thread in women, if not all, war correspondents. They feel invincible. They do not feel fear. They thrive on the adrenaline. They give voice to those who do not have a voice.
The book was good. A lot of Israel, a lot of war and the horrors always associated with war. Friendships are tenuous and short lived. Cut short by bullets, suicide, or burn out.
Extraordinary story. Very revealing. Took guts to put it all out there. show less

This is a good book on the Balkan wars, but not the book that I wanted. I was looking for a general outline of the events in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. This book is much more personal. The style is punchy - short pieces related by individuals caught up in the appalling atrocities of the period. Participants appear in the text with no introduction, with no way of telling who they are or why they are being mentioned. There is no attempt to follow a chronology. But the writing is good; show more the content is compelling, heart-rending.
By the end I find myself better informed, but still feel a need for more information on the lead up to the events recounted. How could people become so incredibly inhumane to people who had been their neighbours, school friends, fellow workers? But I doubt that I will soon want to return to delve into this era of savagery and incomprehensible brutality. show less

A raw, heartbreaking glimpse into the lives of Syrian civilians. Interviews show the wide range of opinions and stances held by the Syrian people, from those in complete denial of the crisis to those who are unable to escape it. While Di Giovanni's effort to compile these stories and tidbits of history was an extremely dangerous and admirable endeavor, it occasionally feels a bit voyeuristic. Still, gave it the full four stars for impactful writing.