A Long Way Gone is proving to be one of the more difficult books I’ve ever read. It is hauntingly beautiful in the way the Beah writes his account but it is also vivid in its descriptions of the horrors witnessed and perpetrated in this West African nation.

My heart has been aching as Beah and his friends have been fleeing through the bush with little to no respite from the soldiers and their bullets.

Last night I read how Beah barely escaped death for what seemed like the third or fourth time in 43 short pages. I would finish a chapter and think, “Ok, I’ll just read one more.” In the end I had to stop reading because I was overcome with grief and anger.

“It was during that attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior, my older brother.”

With that I rolled over but sleep did not come to me quickly.