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Book Review of What is the What

What is the What
What is the What
Author: Dave Eggers
Genre: Nonfiction
Book Type: Paperback
rhiannon32 avatar reviewed on + 15 more book reviews


This is the fictinalized account of a Lost Boy. Told both during his life in America and over the course of many years of the civil war that tore his and many other lives apart in Southern Sudan. This is truly a look into a life of a refugee and made me feel like my eyes were open to a life very different than my own in a way that no other documentary/book has ever done before. Really moving and sad, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. It gives hope to the reader that a person can live through such injustice and cruelty but yet still come out with humanity intact through it all. After reading the book I looked into Valentino Achak Deng's website and foundation. They just built a school with money raised through this book and his other works to get the word out on this terrible tragedy. Amazing!