Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In 2074, the American South has once again attempted to secede from the Union, this time in ferocious opposition to the Sustainable Future Act, even as the ravages of global warming—severe storms, prolonged drought, and a massive rise in sea levels— cause waves of coastal refugees to pour into the Midwest as the federal government abandons deluged Washington, D.C., for Columbus, Ohio. The Chestnuts are getting by, living in an old shipping container in Louisiana, until Benjamin is killed in a bombing. Martina flees to a Mississippi refugee camp with her soon-to-be-rebel son, Simon, and twin daughters, fair and pretty Dana and dark, curious, and intrepid Sarat, the focus of this vigorously well-informed, daringly provocative speculative first novel by an Egyptian-born Canadian journalist. As Sarat grows into a six-foot-five, shaved-head warrior, she is radicalized by agents of a new Middle Eastern and North African superpower, the Bouazizi Empire. The war between Red and Blue is further compounded by raging plagues, while captured insurrectionists are tortured in a domestic Guantánamo. Catalyzed by his reporting on the Arab Spring; the war in Afghanistan; racial violence in Ferguson, Missouri; and environmental disasters, El Akkad has created a brilliantly well-crafted, profoundly shattering saga of one family's suffering in a world of brutal power struggles, terrorism, ignorance, and vengeance. American War is a gripping, unsparing, and essential novel for dangerously contentious times.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: El Akkad's explosive, darkly cautionary tale will be strongly promoted via a many-faceted marketing campaign and numerous national author appearances. Copyright 2017 Booklist Reviews.
Library Journal Reviews
In Egyptian-born, Canadian-based journalist El Akkad's debut novel, the second American Civil War has broken out, and six-year-old Sarat Chestnut is herded into a displaced persons camp with her family. There, a mysterious official begins training her to be a weapon of war. Owing to strong sales rep enthusiasm, this book is getting special treatment.. Copyright 2016 Library Journal.
Library Journal Reviews
Award-winning journalist Akkad's gripping and frightening debut novel takes off from current American political and environmental issues to imagine a bleak and savage not-too-distant future. During a long second American civil war, the Chestnut family, consisting of a mother, son, and twin daughters, are moved to a refugee camp in what's left of a region of Mississippi in the year 2081. There, one of the daughters, Sarat, grows into a strong and independent soul who is recruited by a shadowy operative to conduct missions against the northern borders. She assassinates a high-ranking leader of the North's military, leading to reprisals and her eventual capture. She is tortured by the North, then finally released and moves back south with her injured brother and his family. Later, she's offered the chance to perform one final deadly mission in order to sabotage the peace talks that are finally taking place between the two bitter enemy regions.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
El Akkad's debut novel transports us to a terrifyingly plausible future in which the clash between red states and blue has become deadly and the president has been murdered over a contentious fossil fuels bill. In 2074, Sarah T. Chestnut—called Sarat—comes of age in the neutral state of Louisiana, where she is slowly drawn into the conflict after the death of her father, performing guerrilla operations for the South. Soon she is enmeshed in a resistance movement masterminded by the Dixie militants operating along the Tennessee River, venturing into quarantined South Carolina battlegrounds and Georgia shantytowns alongside spies, assassins, and revolutionaries, like the commanding Adam Bragg and his Salt Lake Boys. Sarat finds brief happiness with Layla, a displaced bar owner from Valdosta, Georgia, but this is only the beginning of Sarat's war, as she is interred in the nightmarish Camp Saturday before being exiled in the wake of a devastating plague. Now an old and broken woman, Sarat must seek redemption in the wreckage of the New World. Part family chronicle, part apocalyptic fable,
School Library Journal Reviews
Benjamin Chestnut, a historian of the Second U.S. Civil War (2075–93), chronicles the life and times of his aunt Sarat. When he first meets her, she is a stoop-backed woman who hides in the shed behind his house, sleeps on the floor, and speaks to no one. When readers first meet her, she is a feisty six-year-old, ready to take on the world. And what a world it is: climate change has created sea rise that wiped out both U.S. coasts for miles inland, and searing heat burns the soil so that food must be brought in from foreign shores. Sarat is caught in the middle of a burgeoning war between the states, based on Northern demands that the South give up fossil fuels. This hardship breeds resentment, and violence seeps into Sarat's life. The girl's mother insists they leave their home in Louisiana for points north, but they make it only as far as the refugee camp at the border of the northernmost Southern state. Here, Sarat learns her cultural history from those who recruit her to serve the South. Interspersing the work with news, government reports, and interviews, Benjamin describes Sarat's growing resistance, willingness to fight fiercely, and subsequent capture and torture. Twenty years later, when Benjamin meets her, she is broken but unrepentant; Sarat serves up one last horrible act of revenge to ensure victory for the South.