Don't read this book

Don't read this book. It is too powerful -- and painful.

In the world, there are stories written about frivolous flirtations, about a new dress, about a sport, but Say You're One of Them is written about survival, bare survival. Too painful, and the pain involves children and the stories are told by children, the most beautiful things on Earth.

I tell you not to read this book because its stories are too painful to bear.

But what writing! Oh, my, how well the stories are told.  How much is said in a few words. No wasted words in Uwen Akpan's stories.

Unless you want to feel how silly all our difficulties that we make so much of really are, don't read this book. The suffering, from what I could see, has nothing to do with the individuals involved. They are innocent. They are caught in a world gone mad. Atrocities of the heart are committed in this book through no fault of the people you come to care about so deeply.

Unless you want searing pain, don't read this book.

I have read only three of the stories, and I'm going to rush it back to the library before I read any more of them.

But what an author. And how he can write. What stories. How powerful.