nell’s Reviews > American War > Status Update

i am sadder than anyone to announce that im just finding this so painfully boring. el akkad is a really bad writer of character and this is particularly glaring when it comes to women, so it was a real choice to fill his book with female characters when they are all so dull and cliched and lacking any complexity or nuance

i am always suspicious of men writing tomboys and their relationship with femininity/stereotypes surrounding femininity mainly because i do not believe this is something they are usually capable of understanding and unforch el akkad is proving why so far. “now dana suddenly seemed to her impossibly juvenile, and the things that held her interest girlish and trite.” hmmm…is that so, omar…

i am unfortunately already finding sarat’s (and yes the name thing will be coming up in the review) characterisation reallyyy hackneyed and thus struggling to invest in the fate of her and her too-good-to-be-true family. but we’ll persist