Overall I believe that the book A Long Way Gone was a good book and had a lot of interesting points throughout it. It was a book that pulled me into it as soon as i started reading it. This book is a memoir of a boy soldier. This book was written by Ishmael Beah he was born On November 23rd, 1980. It is a autobiography on Ishmaels struggle to keep his humanity, recovery, and getting through being a child pulled into a war. This book follows the story of Ishmael Beah’s actual life during the start of the War all the way until he escaped to New York.
During this time Ishmael was 12 years old that was living in Sierra Leone. Ishmael older brother Junior was also dragged into the war. As the war went on Ishmael had been separated with his brother. Ishmael never sees his family again once they get separated during the war. Although he kept positivity in his mind that he would reunite with them again, unfortunately it never happened and he began to lose hope. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, they also have unfair wages for workers, and they only mine diamonds. Workers were unable to feed and support their families due to the unfair wages. In the book Ishmael is the main character and this story is written from his perspective and real life stories. Ishmael had to go into war while he was a child due to the military base running out of men.
At 12 years old I could never imagine my brothers being in a war. Ishmael was so young and terrified a lot of the time. When he turned 13 he found refuge with government soldiers. This had lead Ishmael to take part in very bad acts of violence. Ishmael did describe some of the violent acts he was apart of during the book. Ishmael got into drugs and was a killing machine. He states in the book that one town he had entered had air that smells of blood and burnt flesh. During this war 50,000 people in Sierra Leone were dead, and 2.5 million were affected. Sierra Leone is said to be estimated as the highest death rate in the world. After this war the formal economy was destroyed. The violence was extremely horrible that Ishmael had witnessed and had to be apart of in some cases. It varied from countless men, women, and children being burned alive, shot, stabbed, and more horrible ways. Throughout the book Ishmael did a good job with writing the experiences he went through.
127 our experts are availableright now
It was easy for me to picture these acts in my head, because of the imagery he created. At 16 years old Ishmael was lucky enough to be released and sent to a rehab center to get the chance to try and rebuild his life again. When Ishmael got out of rehab he was able to further his education and become UNICEF’s Advocate for children who have been affected by war. Ishmael was also able to attend United Nations International School and Oberlin College after the war. It was hard to Ishmael to adjust into a different lifestyle, since he was so use to violence at such a young age. It was good to be able to understand what was going on in the book, because it was easy to view what was going on. After a very hard life that Ishmael had gone through he was able to pick himself up and become a completely different person. Ishmael is now a successful author and speaker, and spreads awareness using his personal stories.
