IraqiGirl

It's no "Anne Frank" (but then could anyone come close??). This is a compilation of Hadiya's blog entries which were meant for public consumption, so there's a certain lack of intimacy and sharing of deep inner thoughts. Her entries start out in a typically girlish teen voice but as the war progresses and she reports on bomb explosions and loss with greater frequency, her tone darkens and her prose becomes more expressive. She broods over the reasons for her existence in a war-torn land, signing off one entry as "Me, Myself, Not I." But as she enters pharmacy college, she rediscovers hope and optimism. Again, it's no Anne Frank, but blogging her experiences in a 21st century war seems appropriate for teen readers wishing to view the U.S. occupation of Iraq through Iraqi eyes.… (mer)

IraqiGirl is a compilation of blog posts written by an anonymous girl blogging her way through the Iraq War. She shares in her posts the horrors of the war and talks about her life as a teenager in Iraq. She speaks of the typical struggles of any teenager--worrying about exams, friendships, sibling rivalry, figuring out who she is-- but then within the next sentence she will relay an experience about drinking dirty water, a car bomb exploding near her house or the electricity only being on for four hours and you remember that this is not your typical coming of age story. Her voice is typical of that of any sixteen year old and her fears, hopes and dreams are heartbreaking and raw.

I very much enjoy memoirs and diaries as I enjoy learning about people. The thing I love about this book is that she was just writing for her own blog so there is an authentic and honest account of her life. It was not written with any other intention other than to share her life, hopes and dreams with whomever was to read it. She was not paid to write this beforehand so it is real and does not contain nicely packaged life lessons.

Her story made my heart break. When she started this blog in 2004, I was going into my freshman year in college. I followed the happenings going on in Iraq and I felt compassionately for the innocent people who were in the middle of this war but will admit I really didn't think too much of it. There were two countries engaged in this war and yet I never felt any of the effects of it as this young girl did. The war was real to her everyday. The war was only real to me when I saw a report on the television or heard of someone whose loved ones were in Iraq and even then it wasn't the type of reality as waking up in the middle of the night to warplanes or mortars exploding. This account of the war--no matter what your feelings were about the war -- will force you to think about those who were caught in the middle of this. I think sometimes it is easy to think of war to be like the scenes of The Patriot or a movie like that where the two opposing forces walk towards each other in a battlefield that is void of any civilians. The fighting is contained to the battlefield. Today's wars are not like this. They are messy and uncontained.

This book was extremely eye-opening and it was interesting to read her story and "watch" her grow. She has alot of followers in the US who have read her blog from the beginning and have been able read about everything unfolding. I would recommend this book to anybody with an interest in learning about people from other cultures, the Iraq War or people who enjoy a good diary. The only things that kept this rating at 3.5 stars were the fact that it WAS a bunch of blog posts so at some points it was very scattered, random and mundane. Overall, it was very insightful and well worth the read. I finished it all in one day. I think it would be interesting for teachers to use in their classroom as there were interesting discussion questions afterward.

This book certainly made me appreciate my freedom and all the things I take forgranted in my daily life.

You can visit her blog at: www.iraqigirl.blogspot.com… (mer)