|
Outstanding
|
Booklist Gillian Engberg
Readers will come away feeling shattered by this haunting, original story. [1 Sep 2005, p. 64]
|
|
Outstanding
|
Boston Globe Renee Graham
In this staggering debut, ''Beasts of No Nation," Uzodinma Iweala, a 23-year-old Harvard graduate, has written a novel about the perversity of war, and the fragility of humanity.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Entertainment Weekly Thom Geier
It is a credit to Iweala, and to the future of fiction, that Agu's story is true, fundamentally true, in every way but the most superficial--he does not literally exist.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Kirkus Reviews
This astonishing debut by a gifted 23-year-old American of Nigerian ancestry tracks an African child soldier's descent into hell. [15 Jul 2005, p.756]
|
|
Outstanding
|
Library Journal Misha Stone
This slim, harrowing account of the intoxication of violence and how quickly it can escalate is a cautionary tale that offers no easy answers or explanations. [1 Sep 2005, p. 131]
|
|
Outstanding
|
Publishers Weekly
Its odd singsong cadence and twisted use of tense take a few pages to get used to, but Iweala's electrifying prose soon enough propels a harrowing read. [29 Aug 2005, p. 29]
|
|
Outstanding
|
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Lewis DeSoto
Beasts of No Nation is a difficult book to read. But it is a book we must read, and think about. [10 Dec 2005, p. D9]
|
|
Outstanding
|
The New York Times Janet Maslin
All we are knowing about Mr. Iweala is that his book will be readily embraced by readers. Its nuances may not be subtle, but its nobility is impossible to miss.
|
|
Outstanding
|
The New York Times Book Review Simon Baker
The acute characterization, the adroit mixture of color and restraint, and the horrific emotional force of the narrative are impressive. Still more impressive is Iweala's ability to maintain not only our sympathy but our affection for his central character.
|
|
Outstanding
|
The Guardian Ali Smith
A novel so scorched by loss and anger that it's hard to hold and so gripping in its sheer hopeless lifeforce that it's hard to put down.
|
|
Favorable
|
The Independent Nicholas Tucker
This book about children that is in no sense a children's book deserves to be read, particularly by those with strong stomachs and the inclination to encounter some of the more horrific lows that exist in the world today.
|
|
Favorable
|
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Anita Sethi
The unmodulated stylistic intensity may paradoxically dissipate the novel's overall power, but Uzodinma Iweala's is a confident and promising new voice.
|
|
Favorable
|
Washington Post Anderson Tepper
Iweala's slim, incendiary novel immerses us in the nightmarish chaos and savagery of an unnamed African country's civil war.
|
|
Favorable
|
USA Today Deirdre Donahue
This profoundly depressing novel depicts a world without hope or structure, where violence is random and meaningless. Most disturbing are the adult attempts to destroy Agu's soul. And that is why the end resonates so deeply.
|
|
Favorable
|
The Guardian Hephzibah Anderson
This is urgent writing, starkly unsentimental and convincing in both cadence and rhythm, but this same dread authenticity overwhelms any sense of its novelistic virtues.
|
|
Favorable
|
San Francisco Chronicle Diana Abu-Jaber
This stark, vivid book derives much of its immediacy from Agu's fragmented consciousness. Elements of his voice--its urgent testimonial quality; a raw, naive forthrightness; and an almost ruthlessly disarming spontaneity--recall Jamaica Kincaid's narrators in novels such as "Annie John."
|
|
Favorable
|
London Review Of Books Thomas Jones
Beasts of No Nation isn't autobiographical, and doesn't claim to be. But he has worked in Nigeria with survivors of West Africa's civil wars, and Beasts of No Nation is written with the authority of someone who knows what he's talking about. It's also written in a way that acknowledges the problems of representing a life of such extraordinary brutality that it's almost beyond imagining.
|
|
Favorable
|
Los Angeles Times Susan Salter Reynolds
In the blood and vomit and angry voices captured in "Beasts of No Nation," a reader sees human nature reforged, manacled to evil, tragically perverted.
|
