Blog Tour: Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday

Today, I’m happy to be a part of the blog tour for the book Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday by Natalie C. Anderson. I’ll start with the book information, and follow with a review and some brief contextual information about the events portrayed in the story. You can check out the previous tour stop here (and some of my other blog tours here!).

Book Description

Forced to become a child soldier, a sixteen-year-old Somali refugee must confront his painful past in this haunting, thrilling tale of loss and redemption for fans of A Long Way Gone and What is the What 

When Abdi’s family is kidnapped, he’s forced to do the unthinkable: become a child soldier with the ruthless jihadi group Al Shabaab. In order to save the lives of those he loves, and earn their freedom, Abdi agrees to be embedded as a spy within the militia’s ranks and to send dispatches on their plans to the Americans. The jihadists trust Abdi immediately because his older brother, Dahir, is already one of them, protégé to General Idris, aka the Butcher. If Abdi’s duplicity is discovered, he will be killed.

For weeks, Abdi trains with them, witnessing atrocity after atrocity, becoming a monster himself, wondering if he’s even pretending anymore. He only escapes after he is forced into a suicide bomber’s vest, which still leaves him stumps where two of his fingers used to be and his brother near death. Eventually, he finds himself on the streets of Sangui City, Kenya, stealing what he can find to get by, sleeping nights in empty alleyways, wondering what’s become of the family that was stolen from him. But everything changes when Abdi’s picked up for a petty theft, which sets into motion a chain reaction that forces him to reckon with a past he’s been trying to forget.

In this riveting, unflinching tale of sacrifice and hope, critically-acclaimed author Natalie C. Anderson delivers another tour-de-force that will leave readers at the edge of their seats.

Author Bio

Natalie C. Anderson is an American writer and international development professional living in Geneva, Switzerland. She has spent the last decade working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations on refugee relief and development, mainly in Africa. She was selected as the 2014-2015 Associates of the Boston Public Library Children’s Writer-in-Residence, where she wrote her debut novel, City of Saints & Thieves.

Review

Wow, let me first say that Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday tackles an extremely difficult subject. For many, it’s a window into a culture not seen in YA lit. Abdi struggles with what happened when he was a part of Al-Shabaab. We get his experience in snippets, flipping between the past and present. While this is a bit difficult to follow at first, the inclusion of dates helps in keeping the reader straight throughout the book.

Anderson paints a light on the horrors that have happened in Somalia through the eyes of a teenager. We feel for Abdi as he tries to cope with the actions he’s committed, and the consequences of those actions. The book moves smoothly from past to present, giving readers a fuller picture of the status of events in Somalia.

Though the author isn’t from Somalia, the detail provided in the text shows that it is thoroughly researched. Anderson creates vivid images that illustrate her attention to the facts, and making parts of the book difficult to read. In the author’s note, she mentions interviewing refugees; while she hasn’t actually been there, she worked to gain the information necessary to create an authentic story.

Overall, the book is well-crafted, featuring an important topic. For me, it was a page turner. I just desperately needed to know that Abdi turns out okay. Well, as okay as can be expected.

4/5 stars

5 Facts about Somalia

To provide context for Doomsday, I’ve compiled a small list of facts/further reading to better understand the topic.

1. Somalia is located in Eastern Africa, just east of Ethiopia. It’s most a desert country, with a dry and a monsoon season. It’s almost five times the size of Alabama, just slightly smaller than Texas.
2. The Al-Shabaab is a terrorist group that formed in Somalia in 2006. They preyed on the fact that Somalia has a weak central government, causing terror in the general population. They peaked in 2011; while the group is weaker than it has been in the last few years, there has still been more than 150 attacks since 2011.
3. The main goal of the Al-Shabaab is to create a fundamentalist Islamic State in the Horn of Africa, encompassing Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia. As we see in the story, the group is strict about religion, carving out time in the day for prayer, altering clothes to fit scripture, etc. Through Abdi, Anderson accurately represents this aspect of the group.
4. Since 1991, the United Nations (which Sam works for in the book) has been working to resolve the conflict in Somalia and provide aid to its citizens. In April of 1992, they officially created the group United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), a relief effort that was often met with resistance.
5. The US has had a relationship with Somalia since they were freed from Britain. Though the US Embassy in Somalia was dissolved in 1991. However, the US did continue to provide aid whenever possible, aiming to create stability in the country.

If you decide to pick up this book, I hope this bit of background helps! And you should definitely pick up the book–a complex and emotional read that’ll also open up your eyes to the struggles of those around the world.