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A read for my library book club, I found myself reading this gorgeous novel pretty much straight through. A story that sharply, without apology or sugar-coating, cuts through it all — our global predilection for NIMBY-ism, hate, and hypocrisy, underscored by generations of war and conquest — to lay bare the heart-rending problems faced by global refugees, wherever their origin, as they are forced to face the brutality of humanity’s inhumanity.

“Barricaded from one another by walls of language and place and purpose”.

Amir Utu, an eight-year-old survivor of war-torn Syria is facing the unimaginable loss of loved ones and of everything held dear (including his own personal safety) and must now, along with his hastily re-assembled family, flee his country to survive.

As Amir tells his story, it’s impossible not to feel the poignancy of his words, captured in the voice of one so young and innocent, for whom childhood is no longer an option. The details of Amir’s exodus to Egypt and beyond are eye-opening and stomach-turning, and are also a devastatingly accurate fictionalization of true-life reported events.

When Amir meets Vanna Hermes, a fifteen-year-old native of the Greek island of Kos , the two develop a deep and seemingly primal emotional connection, despite massive language and cultural differences. Outcasts in arms, their country-less connection suggests hope and even salvation, — the “sheer lightness of a repairable world” — if such a thing could indeed, be made possible.

I loved this story, and the outcomes clearly, painfully, laid bare by the author — all of them, including those laced with hope, and compassion, and those, perhaps even more realistically, not.

A riveting and memorable story, this (my first read of the New Year) is already destined a favorite, and is sure to spark much discussion in our upcoming book club.