American War

By Omar El Akkad

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle--this gripping debut novel asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself. From the author of What Strange Paradise

Powerful ... as haunting a postapocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy [created] in The Road. --The New York Times

Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1101973137
• ISBN13: 9781101973134
• Release Date: January 2018
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Haunting

This book, for me, was emotionally provocative in a way I wasn't anticipating. After the first few pages it was clear I was reading something written by an expert and I devoured the words. This story has stuck with me, lingering. I have passed through all seven stages of grief and have accepted that this is not a contemporary novel, this is not some incredibly insightful work depicting an all too plausible dystopia. This is a historical fiction, a semi-factual tale about southern pride, northern greed and a divisiveness that can never end, as told by someone that's been there.

Fantastic story

The book was very well written. It feels like a reality that could come to be by the way Akkad writes! American war is about a future 2nd civil war that strikes the United States, and follows one family and how one girl can shape the war.