Small Country

Heartbreaking and powerful, this slim novel packs a powerful punch. It was an enlightening read about a horrific time. I am familiar with Rwanda and the genocide that happened there in the nineties but I was unfamiliar with the neighboring country of Burundi and the violence that erupted there around the same time. It's a coming of age story about a young boy who see the world changing around his very eyes and tries to make sense of the senseless violence. I can summarize it any more beautifully than the author: "Every day in our world, we hear the terms “migrants” and “refugees,” but we forget that behind these words, there are names, dreams, and voices. This novel is a long poem about one of those kids, from a distant conflict, who finds his own words to tell his name and his story. And I hope also that the readers can discover Burundi because this is one of the first novels to talk about this small and relatively unknown country."

Between Shades of Gray

I loved this!! It was haunting and beautiful read that sheds light on a disturbingly overlooked part of history, the murder of millions of citizens in the Baltic states in 1941. When people think of World War II they tend to think of the Holocaust and Pearl Harbor but many overlook the millions of people that Stalin had killed. It's chilling depictions of the horrors of the labor camps, starvation, murder, and packing people in cattle cars will stay with the reader. This isn't just a story of despair however, Lina and her family hold onto hope, no matter how hopeless their lives have become.

An absolute must read. The short chapters make this book a fast and an inspiring read.