Review of American War by Omar El-Akkad

American War by Omar El-Akkad

Reviewed by Nivin Khan, 2022.

A chilling dystopian novel set in the United States only decades in the future, American War depicts the U.S. divided in a time of climate catastrophe – fighting a Second American Civil War over the use of fossil fuels. Readers experience the war through young Sarat Chestnut, a uniquely courageous girl, as her harsh life journey develops her into a deadly product of war. Readers follow her closely through her innocent childhood in neutral territory to her early teen years as a refugee, her young adult years of temporary bliss to her dreadful years at an internment camp. American War tells a coming-of-age story unlike any other – a story of how a war turns one of its victims into one of its deadliest weapons. American War is an eye-opening novel on all the injustice and brutality in war, and all the kindness and cruelty of mankind. It tells a dark yet uncannily realistic story that readers will find unforgettable.

This novel can be found in the General Fiction section of Laurier’s Library and Learning Commons.