Publishers Weekly
★ 03/12/2018
Arcos (Out of Reach) depicts the horrors of the 1990s Bosnian conflict in this powerful novel that juxtaposes images of the war against a fictionalized terrorist attack in Rhode Island. The story begins in the present day with teenage Zara bemoaning the fact that she feels distant from her mother, Nadja. Zara knows that Nadja was a victim of the Bosnian war, but many questions remain unanswered. What are the nightmares that make Nadja scream out in the night? Why does she never speak of her wartime experiences? Then Zara experiences a trauma firsthand. While at the farmers’ market with her mother and brother, a bomb goes off, leaving both children injured and their mother in a coma. Now, facing the possibility that Nadja may never awaken, Zara feels a pressing need to understand her family history. Arcos alternates Zara’s battle with PTSD and her quest to find clues to her mother’s past with the story of young Nadja’s struggles to survive after her entire family is killed by Serbs. The result is a multilayered view of tragedy and its repercussions. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenburg Roston Literary Agency. (May)
From the Publisher
Praise for We Are All That's Left:
* "A multilayered view of tragedy and its repercussions." —Publishers Weekly, *STARRED REVIEW*
* "This complex, compelling story takes readers on a deep dive below the surface, exposing both the fragility of life and the redemptive bonds of love." —Booklist, *STARRED REVIEW*
"This important and timely novel is a painful, lovely exploration of mending a mother-daughter relationship." —Kirkus Reviews
School Library Journal
04/01/2018
Gr 9 Up—Seventeen-year-old Zara has a difficult relationship with her immigrant mother, Nadja, who is judgmental of the hobby Zara hopes to make a career: photography. Zara knows that her mother survived the horrific ethnic cleansing of her own Muslim people during the Bosnian War, but her mother isn't very open about that part of her past. Zara feels farther from her mother than ever when they become the victims of a present-day, nation-wide terrorist attack that injures Zara and puts Nadja into a coma. From this point forward, both women's stories are told in alternating chapters: Zara's unfolds chronologically during the weeks of their recoveries, while Nadja's bounces between 1992 and 1999 as she experiences life and survival before, during, and after a global humanitarian crisis. While Nadja lays near-lifeless in the hospital, Zara discovers pieces of the past her mother has kept to herself for so long. Letters and photographs (both found in her mother's box and her own) connect the past and the present for Zara, along with the help of a boy she meets visiting her mother in the hospital. While complicated in plot and often heavy in descriptions, this work will be enjoyed by persistent readers who will hopefully walk away with the rich sense of unity that spans time, religion, culture, and love so expertly threaded within the narrative. VERDICT Filled with imagery, language, and situations often found during times of war and suffering, this historical-meets-present title is best suited for thoughtful readers—Brittany Drehobl, Morton Grove Public Library, IL
Kirkus Reviews
2018-02-20
A mother and daughter with a strained relationship cope with the legacy of horrific violence.Zara is the daughter of an interfaith marriage between her mostly secular parents: a Bosnian Muslim mother and white Catholic father. She is an ordinary American girl in many ways despite her fraught relationship with her traumatized mother—Zara knows that Nadja was a refugee, but her mother's emotional distance has stopped her from learning the details of her past. An ISIS bombing at a Rhode Island farmers market leaves Zara wounded and her mother comatose but also opens up the path for Zara to finally understand her mother's story. At the hospital she develops a close friendship with a spiritually seeking, biracial (Haitian and Irish) boy who is there visiting his grandmother. Interwoven chapters tell the story of Nadja in 1990s Bosnia, where she was an equally ordinary adolescent, treasuring mix tapes from her Serbian boyfriend. But the Bosnian War changes everything, and Nadja finds herself a survivor of genocide, having experienced crimes so horrific she's blocked them out. Ethnic and religious conflict among modern Europeans contrasts sharply with racist Islamophobia in Zara's contemporary New England. The search for faith and meaning pervades the story, but, disappointingly, the narrative too often filters spirituality through Western and Christian lenses. The long, complex history of the South Slavs is also overly simplified.Despite its shortcomings, this important and timely novel is a painful, lovely exploration of mending a mother-daughter relationship. (author's note, bibliography, glossary) (Fiction. 13-17)
