Live Your Life Be Free!

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Originally Posted on  Chapters/Indigo

This was not an easy book to read, but it was an important story to hear. As others have stated, there is some controversy over the veracity of Beah’s account from newspaper, “The Australian”. From doing a bit of research, it seems that there is no “smoking gun” saying that his accounts were a lie (everything is hearsay). You can see the Wiki here, and the author’s response to the accounts here. The story is so awful, I think a lot of us WANT to believe that it could never of happened on this earth.

So, assuming that everything was true, I found the book heart-wrenching. Being a teenager is so difficult – and to layer drugs and violence on top of it, seems unbearable. Since we are about the same age, his music references (such as Heavy D and the Boyz) made me remember what I was doing at the time, and how much simpler my life was. Family (relatively) in tact. A stable political situation. Nothing to worry about other than school and friends. This book reminds us all that these are gifts.

The book was set well – I felt like I was living in a world of chiefs, villages and wild animals. He was honest about his relationship with drugs and violence, and did not get overly moralistic about it.

One thing I wish the book had more of was some insight into the “why”. I would have liked to understand how he went from a boy soldier to a reformed one. It seemed like the switch at the UNICEF centre was completely binary, and from what I understand of the human heart, things don’t play out like that. It is also a bit of a Cinderella story at the end, and I wish he discussed if there were any aftershock effects of living the life he did for so many years – such as if the drugs had long-term effects. Or, if he was numb to violence or super-sensitive based on how he lived. Or if he missed his homeland or despised it.

Overall, I would recommend this book. I think in the Western world we like to place war in the past or somewhere far away. A book like this reminds us of all of the awful things that war brings… to people that don’t deserve to be forgotten.

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