Novic lived in Zagreb at the beginning of the civil war in Croatia between Croats and Serbs in the 1990s, and she has based her debut novel on this experience. We first meet her protagonist, Ana, as an ordinary, happy girl, living with her parents and baby sister in a small apartment and riding bikes with her friend Luka through the city. Soon enough, however, people begin to disappear, bombs begin to fall, and the children are plotting their bike routes around traumatized refugees and homemade explosives. The climax of the book comes early, when Ana's family takes a fateful journey to Sarajevo to bring Ana's little sister, Rahela, who is suffering from kidney failure, into the hands of an organization that will send her to the United States for treatment. The story swings back and forth from past to present, tracking young Ana's survival in a war zone that defies comprehension. Dreamy sequences of her time in a safe house reloading guns and of desperate escapes with friends and strangers alike alternate with more recent scenes of Ana in New York City, sleepwalking through her existence in a place she does not feel she really belongs. This is a fine, sensitive novel, though the later scenes in Manhattan never reach the soaring heights of the sections set in wartime Croatia. Novic displays her talent, heightening the anticipation of what she will do next. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
We know the broad outlines of the terrible shattering of the Balkans in the early 1990s, but the essence of war is in the details, and Croatian-born Novic's debut novel delivers a finely honed sense of what the bloodshed really meant for those who withstood it. Ana Juric', who's been blithely chasing around Zagreb with best friend Luka, gets a taste of what's to come when she goes to buy cigarettes for her godfather and is asked nastily whether she wants the Serbian or Croatian brand. Even as the fighting breaks out, Ana's little sister becomes so ill that the family must risk a trip to Sarajevo. Rahela is sent to America for treatment, but the rest of her family doesn't fare well on the trip home, and we next see Ana as a college student in New York. Adopted by the couple who also took in Rahela, Ana powerfully resists discussing a past that includes a bone-jarring turn as a child soldier, as revealed in flashback. Finally, Ana returns to Croatia, uncertain what she wants and uncertain in what she finds. VERDICT Novic's heartbreaking book is all the more effective for its use of personal rather than sensational detail and will be embraced by a wide range of readers. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]--Barbara -Hoffert, Library Journal © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
