by Sara Novic
First published 2015
Ana Juric runs through the streets of Zagreb with her best friend Luka in the summer of 1991. The ten-year-old tomboy helps care for baby sister Rahela and adores her father. Then civil war erupts across Yugoslavia. Sniper fire replaces soccer games. Air raid drills interrupt school lessons. Tragedy strikes Ana's family, thrusting her into a brutal world of guerilla fighters and child soldiers. A desperate escape to America offers her only path to survival. Ten years pass. Ana studies at a New York college, concealing her past from her boyfriend and friends. She hides the truth even from herself. The memories of what destroyed her family refuse to stay buried. Ana travels back to Croatia alone. She must face the country that was once her home and confront the ghosts of everyone she lost. Sara Novic weaves together a war saga and coming of age story that examines how conflict reshapes individual lives and tests the bonds of friendship and homeland.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, war, coming-of-age
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, Croatia, New York, Yugoslavia, Zagreb
Period: 1991, 2000s
326 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown
Content warnings: child-death, graphic-violence, war