Another book I wish I could give 4.5, but I would round this down to 4 instead. There are many positive attributes, for sure. Beah is a great storyteller, he punctuates this weighty, gut-wrenching story with moments of illusory beauty as well as some moments of unexpected hilarity, particularly near the end. And when I say gut-wrenching, I mean it - a lot of times this gets overused whenever there is a spark in ones gut, but this is like taking a series of sucker punches in a row.

On the other hand, as great of a storyteller Beah is, it's a memoir, not a story. There are few things that I wish he got into more that I would expect from a memoir and not necessarily story, particularly during the ending. Some parts of his life seem rushed and missing a lot of context that I would have wanted to know. It's not a very long book either so, seems like there was plenty of space to add more to the story.

Finally, out of curiosity I google the book afterwards and saw there was some controversy about its veracity. On the one hand, the fact that Rupert Murdoch is backing the accusations immediately puts it in a bad light, but it seems that some things can't really be corroborated. I don't know what exactly to believe anymore, and combined with some of the missing elements/weird ending, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

But, regardless of that, there are plenty of things that are undeniably true in the story to warrant a read, plus Beah relates it so well. Overall, a 4 out of 5.