Author Origin: Red Deer, AB
Page Count: 373
Genre: Non-Fiction
Difficulty: Medium
Grade Level: 11+
Key Talking Points: Terrorism, social justice, gender inequality/priviledge
Sensitive Subject Matter: Terrorism, sexual assault
Warning: Knowing that this novel follows true events may make it's sensitive subject matter more sensitive for certain readers
* While this novel is the real-life story of Amanda Lindhout, it was co-written by UK author Sara Corbett
This novel came to me through my own personal book club, but I also currently use it in my grade eleven university English classroom. Seeing how well it worked with my students encouraged me to include it here.
Summary: Amanda Lindhout's story starts normal enough, she is a Canadian girl who longs for adventure in the wider world. She pursues a career as a journalist, but quickly realizes that it is an 'old boys club' that is very hard to break into. She begins to take on more and more dangerous assignments, not only because she is in places that most journalists won't go, but also because she is inspired by the people and the cultures in those locations. In between traveling, she works odd jobs back home to raise enough money to send herself on the next trip, in hopes of finding work in journalism while there. It is in Somalia that Amanda is captured, made all the more tragic as it is by accident and in the place of two other male journalists that she is taken. She is captured with a former lover and current friend, Nigel. The ordeal of her capture and the journey to her eventual release makes up the rest of the book. Because she is a woman, her treatment is vastly different from that of Nigel, but through the suffering she has to endure, her strength as a woman and her perseverance through terror is also shown. Coming out the other side of the trauma, Amanda's story is no less inspiring, as she is the founder of the Global Enrichment Foundation and does humanitarian and social activist work around the world.
For me, the first part of the novel wasn't the most interesting. Learning Amanda's backstory and the foundational decisions leading up to her capture were important in order to empathize with the personal struggles of her imprisonment, but it also made me a little mad. Knowing that the premise of the novel is her being taken as a hostage, every dangerous or reckless choice she made frustrated me. I found myself wondering if this trip would be 'the one' where she is taken and questioning over and over again why the heck she would keep taking such risks. I know it is totally unfair of me to do any sort of blaming of Amanda for what happened to her; it is not her fault. I would have also been angry if she had tried to edit what happened leading up to her capture in order to censor the truth. However, as a reader, it is still hard for me to read these risks without feeling judgy. She also spends some time on love interests and family drama; again, all important to paint the picture of herself as a fully rounded character, but not really what engaged me about the book.
One of the most controversial and interesting discussions surrounding the novel is the gender privilege that Nigel enjoys over Amanda. While he is also imprisoned, and, of course, also goes through extreme hardships, his story is distinctly different from Amanda's. Nigel gets certain privileges that Amanda could not even dream of, and, as a man, Nigel gets to avoid the sexually motivated attacks that Amanda suffers. Amanda also performs much of the emotional labour for the two of them, worrying and caring and protecting and reassuring, where Nigel takes all of it in and offers little back. Of course, the novel is Amanda's perspective. For Nigel's perspective, his novel "The Price of Life" could be an interesting read, if one were so inclined.
Teacher Note: In my classroom, I use this novel as one option for book clubs or literature circles. This semester was the first time having the book on the list of options, and over half of my class selected it as their first choice just based on a brief synopsis, way shorter than the one I gave above. Our course has a social justice theme, and students apply terminology such as privilege, status quo, and ideologies to the novel and answer questions asking them to analyse how the novel reflects and distorts their perception of the world. The students that were assigned the novel handled the sensitive issues very well, and had incredibly detailed and animated discussions each week. At the end of the unit, all of the group members reported back that they really enjoyed the book, even if it made them mad sometimes; mad at Nigel mostly, but also a little at Amanda in a way similar to that I explained above.
Final Thought: This novel does a great job of throwing you into terror and suffering while still making you question all of the grey areas of the situation. Some things, as they must be, are black and white, but others, such as the captors themselves and their motivations, as well as the role of bystanders, are very alarmingly grey.
📚 Ms. CAN Lit
Comments
Post a Comment