Long Way Gone

No matter how you slice it, Ishmael Beah is an amazing man.This autobiographical account of his life details how a happy, cheerful young boy became a merciless soldier at the age of thirteen (and was not the oldest by far). How he went form living with his family in a small village in Sierra Leone to being a drug-addicted killer, ready to gun down anyone who got in the way. Not just killing people, but often doing so in especially brutal ways.Most importantly it details his transformation back from the brink of seemingly endless death and violence into a college-educated young man and exceptional writer.This is, without a doubt, one of the most harrowing, heartbreaking and moving stories I have ever read. Beautiful and honestly written. Passionate and personal, but also painting a larger picture of a world most of will, thank goodness, never experience.For me personally the image that remains most stark is one of a neighbor of Ishmael's, a boy about his age, who is fleeing their village. The boy is carrying a sack of goods from his family's home. The only things he has left of his entire world. But it slows him down, then gets caught between a couple stumps. What happens to the boy is up to the reader to guess, but given that he was being shot at at the time, the likely conclusion is all too grim.(rant approaching) Too often we Americans, comfortable in our relatively easy lives, are inclined to forget the rest of the world. If you asked the average person on the street to name five countries in Africa, they MIGHT get Egypt and South Africa, and then would probably wind up including Afghanistan. Our ignorance about the rest of the world in general and Africa in particular is inexcusible.More than just about anything else this book convinces me that we, as a nation, need to do some sort of "Marshall Plan" for Africa. We can't go in with guns and bombs and make them like us. But we can go in with money, and schools, and medicine. Africa has all the resources it needs to be doing well. But they nevertheless continue to basically suck. Something must be done.I highly recommend this book to readers 10 years or older. I especially recommend it to people who are in their early teens. Perhaps they can learn the horrible lessons Ishmael learned at their age without going through the traumas he experienced.The one real criticism I have of the book is that, like "The Sopranos", it didn't END, so much as just STOP. One moment things are happening, you turn the page, and that's it. It's a minor complaint, but it's still there.This is a book about horrible, horrible war, violence and despair. But it's also a book about hope. I started this review with a quote from Shakespeare, but I shall end with a quote from Cicero who once observed that, "While there's life, there's hope."

A Long Way Gone should be read by everyone, especially those of us whose lives have been comfortable and haven't had to struggle for daily needs or fear for our lives. Ishmael deftly describes the transitiion for carefree childhood to being swept into a war. Survival was key, and he had to join the war or die. We enter into a world of guns, drugs, rage, and death. That he survived and went on to become a speaker and author is miraculous. Ishmael gave a talk at the high school where I taught. It was impactful and kept us talking for quite a while after his visit. This book is well worth your time and will probably lead to some personal reflection about what we would do to survive. It is easy to say, "I would never do that!" when life hasn't put you in the position to have to make an actual choice. Thank you, Ishmael, for sharing your story.

*SPOILER ALERT* A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider is a captivating recounting of the Author’s, Ishmael Beah, experiences as a forced solider in the civil war of Sierra Leone. The novel does a wonderful job amercing the reader into the atmosphere of how sudden and instantaneous war can be with the rapid plot twist that frequent the book and just how horrendous war can be. Due to this emergence the reader truly feels more in tune with Ishmael and the trauma he experiences. The novel is highly descriptive of the violence Ishmael had to witness and participate in. As such I would not recommend this book to those who are squeamish towards violence. The novel however, also has good messages to give the reader such as Ishmael’s triumph over his traumatic experiences, the dangers of revenge, and the power of companionship. This is a great novel for anyone who wants to read about the horrors of civil discord through the eyes of a man who truly experienced it. The book is also a great choice for lovers of redemption stories because Ishmael defies all odds while also growing as a person. What made this book so unique as well is the fact it highlights just how privileged one is. Ishmael suffered throughout the book and had to kill for everything he and because of this he appreciates every little thing he receives such as a Walkman. The novel serves to humble the reader and help them realize how precious life is, so I believe it is a book everyone should read at least once so its message spread. Due to the no fluff, fast paced writing style of Beah which kept me captivated as a reader and the great lesson to be learned, I would give this book a four out of five.

"A Long Way Gone" is actually the second book by Ishmael Beah that I have had the pleasure of reading. I initially fell upon his book "Radiance of Tomorrow" at the beginning of my book journey, and it definitely helped to set the tone in regards to my book choices.Like many things in the news, boy soldiers was something I heard and read about, but it was such an abstract concept to me. It didn't sound real, it didn't sound possible. Furthermore, I lacked the necessary background knowledge on the context of these conflicts that were creating these boy soldiers.It is a privilege to have been able to sit back and just hear about children being trained to be soldiers by not only rebel groups but the governing bodies of countries. It is a privilege to have been almost totally unaware and uneducated on the plight of people in countries like Sierra Leone. It is a privilege that I try to be aware of and recognize, and books like "A Long Way Gone" and "Radiance of Tomorrow" are instrumental in checking my privilege.Through "A Long Way Gone", Ishmael Beah takes boy soldiers out of the abstract and into the realm of reality, giving the term "boy solider" the human faces that have been wiped by such an umbrella term.There was a bit of controversy regarding this book, primarily because people were skeptical to the actuality of this story. "A Long Way Gone" is intended to be a memoir of Ishmael Beah's own journey as a child soldier, and there were supposedly conflicts in the timeline. However, regardless of whether or not this story was the true experience of Ishmael Beah, it cannot be denied that he shares with the world a story that must be exposed and shared. He also raises many ethical questions in regards to child soldiers and how they are dehumanized.Ishmael takes you through the full scope of what being a child soldier entails, including the aftermath. More specifically the rehabilitation that is required and the re-entry into mainstream society.A lot like "The Memory of Lost Skin", this book challenged my perceptions of criminality and rehabilitation. With child soldiers, society condemns them and takes away their status as children because of the atrocities they are brainwashed to commit. Nevertheless, at the end of the day these children are STILL children, and if we are to ensure that they do not continue on a violent life course, we need to believe they can be rehabilitated and take the necessary measures to do so. The human brain is most plastic at younger ages, so making efforts to rehabilitate children will help to mitigate the creation of a whole generation of adults that perpetuate violence due to the residual effects of these conflicts.This is definitely not an easy read, particularly when you realize these are real events that have occurred to thousands of boys in Sierra Leone and other countries. However, if you want to understand what it means to be a boy solider, this would be a good place to start. A good read to accompany "A Long Way Gone" is "What is the What" by Dave Eggers. Compliments well the story of "A Long Way Gone", and gives a differing perspective, i.e. what happens if you are "fortunate" enough to escape being taken as a child solider. Keep in mind "What is the What" covers an entirely different topic (The Lost Boys of Sudan), but it is essential in helping one realize that all these things are connected and not just isolated events.

“My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed.” This is the life, Ishmael Beah was forced to live. He was one of the estimated 300,000 child soldiers hopped up on drugs with an AK47. This is how wars are now fought in over fifty conflicts worldwide. There are many books about child soldiers, but this is the only, first-hand account. As Melissa Fay Greene from Elle says, “No outsider could have ever written this book…”Ishmael Beah’s book describes his life starting at age 12, when he leaves home to visit a neighboring village and gets drafted as a child soldier, to around age 17, when he establishes a new family, and goes to school. In two-hundred eighteen pages he explains running from the war for over a year, getting captured and put into the government army, being released into a UNICEF rehab center, and finally finding a home and going to school. He describes killing other children, watching friends die, having nightmares, and being continuously high on drugs. In the book, he even tells that he was so high, he didn’t even notice that he had cuts from bullets bouncing off his skin.I found this book harsh, informative, and honest. The content, and brutal honesty of the book makes me recommend it to anyone twelve years old or older. I choose twelve because that is the age where he starts this hell.Being an American, I never truly realized how lucky I am until I read this book. As Gilbert Cruz from Entertainment Weekly says, “Americans tend to regard African conflicts as somewhat vague events signified by horrendous concepts - massacres, genocide, mutilation - that are best kept safely at a distance. Such a disconnect might prove impossible after reading A Long Way Gone…” I agree with him. As an American, it’s hard to grasp how severe things are in Africa; luckily I can’t relate to being a child soldier. In other words I looked at people in Africa as just people, not individuals. Now, with the help of Ishmael Beah, I look at people as individuals, not as just people. His book has made me want to help. The only thing that I am still curious about is the bargain UNICEF gave for Ishmael and the others.Ishmael’s book has won many awards including: #1 National Bestseller, and writers from The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, People, Newsweek.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, Time Magazine’s top 10 (3), and many others. He has written one other book Radiance of Tomorrow which is another war book.

It's hard not to have a different perspective on your own life while reading this book. Ishmael Beah's story is so tragic, tumbling from one low point to another, new, lower point so many times that you just have to stop and be thankful for what you have.Beah tells the story of growing up in a village in Sierra Leone and how the outbreak of civil war turns his life and the whole social fabric of the country upside down. Beah's storytelling is compelling and his writing pulls you quickly through his tale.While everyone knows that war is terrible and tragic, Beah emphasizes a couple of points about his experiences that I'm unaccustomed to seeing and I think they are important insights.First, Beah really shows how the war in Sierra Leone destroyed the country's culture, causing people to distrust and mistreat one another out of mutual fear. Several times, before becoming a soldier, Beah was captured and threatened with death by villagers who feared he was a rebel soldier.Second, Beah focuses in on the mental evolution of a child who becomes a soldier and the ways the military brainwashes them. As a soldier, Beah's life becomes a stew of drugs, Rambo movies and merciless violence. In his writing, Beah conveys the sense of a human being becoming broken and emotionally dead. It is terribly disturbing and yet important to understand.This is a hard book to read and yet almost impossible to set down. It makes you what causes the lives of people living in this world to be so tragically different. Very highly recommended.

A Long Way Gone By: Ishmael BeahA Review by: Matthew Bilo“One of them caught the fragments of the RPG. He cried out loudly and screamed that he was blind. ...go out and help him” (Beah 25). But no one did, the true terror of the rebels was present, it was every man for themselves in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael BeahIn the book by Ishmael Beah he experiences a lot of things that most people won’t understand as readers, you really need to try to put yourself in the shoes of him to experience what he is experiencing. What I found out about myself while reading this book is many times I will zone out or stop comprehending the book when I do not put myself in his shoes.While reading Ishmael Beah’s book, I found it repetitive many times. It is very hard to pick up after the first 15 pages. I found myself not wanting to read as the next 30 pages was a lot of same scenario situations over and over again. After those 30 pages the book took off, I couldn’t put it down. The book after page 100 really starts to get interesting. I couldn’t predict a single thing after that, I found myself reading a lot just to get to the next page and find out what happens.During the book Ishmael Beah questioned himself a lot on when this life was going to end: “One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally” (Beah 66). You can tell he is really done with the war. I know that nobody wants a war to happen but, you can tell by the quote that he is truly done with the war and will do anything for it to end. I think most people can connect to this with a time when they really didn’t want to do something, and you will do anything to end it.Overall I really think this book was OK, I think it could've been better in those repetitive parts with more description so the book didn’t feel so boring. After that section I felt the book to a page-turner and very interesting.

This is a compelling true story. A boy named Ishmael leaves his comfortable life in an African village to attend a rap music event with his brother and a few friends. While he is gone, rebel forces attack his village destroying his home and family life. He, his brother, Junior, and his friends then wander the countryside of Sierra Leone trying to survive and avoid both the rebel and government troops. Identifying the enemy is difficult in a country rich in resources and awash with government corruption. Ishmael is separated from his group and eventually attaches himself to another group of teenage boys all under 16. Eventually, the war catches up with him and he and his little band are conscripted into the government troops. For the next two or more years and armed with an AK 47 and RPG's, he kills, maims, and robs in the name of the government. These boy soldiers take many drugs to dull their feelings and allow themselves to participate in the inhumane slaughter. Finally, aid workers either buy the boys' freedom or settle with their army leader and obtain their release. They are taken into the custody of rehabilitation counselors where they are given an opportunity for redemption. Ishmael clearly a natural leader is selected to travel to New York to attend a U.N. conference on child soldiers. While there he makes many friends. I understand that he was taken in by one of them and that he subsequently attended Oberlin college.I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5, because it drags a bit during the years of army participation and killing. Further, Ishmael's parents are divorced, but he lives with his father. His family is Muslim and that may be why the father retained custody. Very telling in the book was a description on pg. 77 (hardback) of his formal naming ceremony. A huge feast is prepared. First the elders eat their fill, then the men, then the boys and lastly the women and children. I presume that if there isn't enough to share, the women and children starve. I don't know if the author realized what he revealed about his culture by this telling description. However, we never learn the basis of the divorce or why his father retained custody. Living conditions were somewhat primative. The houses were made of concrete brick or mud and they had tin roofs which were particularly noisy when it rained. Their diet was complete though not luxurious, and they were not hungry. However, they walked for miles to save bus fare and did not have electricity or telephones in their homes. Sierra leone sounds like a terrible place. The film, Blood Diamond, was about a similar subject.I really don't know if there is a solution when countrymen kill one another over money, resources, and power. However, perhaps, this book and the film, Blood diamond, will be the stimulus for a resolution.This book was worth reading, and I recommend it.

過酷な状況に弄ばれ戦士として生きざるをえなかった少年の生き様。とてつもなく重たい現実です。暴力や残酷な描写も含まれるため、子供向けではないかもしれません。

Author Beah was only twelve when the war caught up with him. He escaped with his older brother and a group of teenage friends. Then they came across the rebels and were torn apart. He wandered alone in the forest for a while then once more teamed up with more homeless errand boys. This is a true story, very gripping and poignant. You feel the desperation of these boys, always on the run, walking endlessly nights and days, with often nothing to eat, stomach tight with fear. They lived the most appaling war, using young boys as soldiers and drugging them so that they become killing machines and have no feelings for their victims. Sickening but highly recommanded to understand what the real war is.

Good book ...Book reader's love it

I decided to order this book based on what I had watched from the well-known film Blood Diamond (2007) starring Leo Di Caprio and Djimon Honsou (protoganists). I was particularly fascinated with the brainwash aspect which fed my curiosity even more to ask further questions such as why use children in the war? What was so special about them? Why couldn’t the commander of the RUF use themselves as pawns? I was also particularly interested in the music and discovered that Emmanuel was also an ex-child soldier who had sang that song in the Blood Diamond brainwash part. As I ventured into the world of child soldiers online,I realised that I also wanted justice on their behalf and that something must be done too. I’m glad I read excerpts before buying this book as the author taught me to be grateful for the blessings I have been given and that being an innocent child is very important and means just that. Overall, a very compelling read. It sounds alot like a Hollywood movie but this is too good to be true.Delivery: came as expected. Price; very affordable. Presentation; very good condition.

This is an absolute must read.Such a good soul and such a smart person with such a hell having to deal with.No matter what you survived it semms like a child play after reading this book.I hope he is well and i wish that his fundation reaches all the children who are suffering on same and similar way as he did/does.God bless you Ishmael.