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A Place for Wolves
The author has stated that he has asked the publisher to withdraw this book from publication.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets Code Name Verity in this heartbreaking and poignant historical thriller.
James Mills isn't sure he can forgive his parents for dragging him away from his life, not to mention his best friend and sister, Anna. He's never felt so alone.
Enter Tomas. Falling for Tomas is unexpected, but sometimes the best things in life are.
Then their world splits apart. A war that has been brewing finally bursts forward, filled with violence, pain, and cruelty. James and Tomas can only rely on each other as they decide how far they are willing to go―and who they are willing to become―in order to make it back to their families.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets Code Name Verity in this heartbreaking and poignant historical thriller.
James Mills isn't sure he can forgive his parents for dragging him away from his life, not to mention his best friend and sister, Anna. He's never felt so alone.
Enter Tomas. Falling for Tomas is unexpected, but sometimes the best things in life are.
Then their world splits apart. A war that has been brewing finally bursts forward, filled with violence, pain, and cruelty. James and Tomas can only rely on each other as they decide how far they are willing to go―and who they are willing to become―in order to make it back to their families.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2019
4 people are currently reading
2481 people want to read
About the author
Kosoko Jackson
15 books785 followersBorn and raised in the DC Metro Area, Kosoko Jackson has worked in non-profit communications for the past four years. His debut, YESTERDAY IS HISTORY, comes out 2021 by SourcebooksFire.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
February 22, 2019
I have to be absolutely fucking honest here, everybody. I’ve never been so disgusted in my life.
I’m going to give you a bit of a history lesson. It is going to be extremely summarized, because I don’t have the space to give you all the information in great detail. If you want to know more—and you should—I would encourage you to do some research yourself.
In the 90s, Yugoslavia broke apart into various different nation states. One of the states that wanted independence was Kosovo. Right beneath Kosovo is Albania, and 90% of people living in Kosovo were ethnically Albanian. Most of these Albanians were also Muslim. Above Kosovo is Serbia, which was largely Orthodox Christians, and Serbia did not want Kosovo to seek independence.
In the 1996, a Kosovan rebel group called the Kosovan Liberation Army formed to fight against their oppression and subjugation, with the goal of seeking independence. They procured weapons, and fought the police and the government for independence in an uprising. Serbian police began to fight back, and started committing atrocities against Albanians, forcing many refugees to flee. Other countries, including the USA, demanded a ceasefire. Following this, the KLA regrouped, and the Yugoslav and Serbian forces responded by ethnically cleansing Albanians from Kosovo. By committing Genocide, essentially. Massacring entire villages, forcing 90% of Kosovo from their homes. Thousands and thousands of girls between the ages of 13 and 19 were raped.
Now, this is a real event, that happened in our very recent past. Not even two decades ago. Babies during the genocide would still be teenagers today. That is how recently it happened. While a surprising amount of Americans have never heard of this genocide, to people from the affected areas, it’s everything. It’s a tragedy that they continue to reel from.
Now, what’s the relevance here, you may ask? Well, a Place for Wolves is set during the Kosovan Genocide. It centers two, non-Muslim Americans, and largely focuses on their suffering, and their fear, whilst being caught in the chaos. There’s something so gross to me about centering our pain and experience in a real-life tragedy that really wasn’t about us. I would like to see this story written by someone who deeply understands it, who feels the pain of their friends and family, who actually was displaced, or threatened. But instead we get the story of privileged Westerners as they viewed the conflict. Which could have been handled well. But oh, it was not. We weren’t watching the suffering inflicted on the Albanian’s viewed through the MC’s eyes. We were watching the MC’s suffering. We were meant to care about the MCs, and screw the genocide victims, really. Which would be fine if this were a fantasy novel, but for fuck’s sake, this novel is set during a REAL LIFE GENOCIDE.
Honestly, reading this felt like the author wanted to set a book in a situation where he could put his MCs at risk and in danger, but he didn’t want to write fantasy, so he decided to set it during the Kosovan genocide. Why do I say this? Because this wasn’t a respectful exploration of a tragedy that really happened. It was all about the MCs, and how scared we are for them, and how much we hope they get out okay so they can return to America and be safe. And, oh yeah, the Kosovans who didn’t get murdered no longer have their family, friends, or homes, but *waves hand vaguely*.
And don’t even get me started on the well-educated Muslim man, Professor Beqiri, who turns out to be a coldblooded terrorist who’s only purpose seems to be to murder and torture and commit harm, even killing his own men. Why, exactly, did the author choose to make the main villain in this story an Albanian Muslim, when it was ALBANIAN MUSLIMS WHO WERE ETHNICALLY CLEANSED? Whatever happened to being aware of what point you’re making with your characters? Another reviewer mentioned that it was somewhat understandable that Professor Beqiri was portrayed as the villain, given that he kidnapped the MCs parents. But that is exactly why I think it was a terrible idea to center this story around fictional Americans. Because most of the readers reading this book will have no prior knowledge of this war, and this will be what they take away from the Genocide. And those who do have knowledge may very well have been affected by the war. Kids. Teenagers. Who already hear about how Muslims are terrorists in the modern world, having to read historical fiction about a tragedy that affected their own family, only to see they’re the evil terrorists once again. In what world is that okay? In what other Genocide would we agree that stories saying the victims were just as wrong should be published?
I am all for ownvoices LGBTQIA. And when I say that, I *mean* it. That’s why I requested this book faster than lightning. But there is a dark side to LGBTQIA books in the community. Specifically, LGBTQIA books that feature a romance between two cis-men. And that, as many of you know, is fetishization. Now I want to clarify – DEAR GOD, I DO NOT MEAN THIS AUTHOR FETISHIZED THIS GAY RELATIONSHIP. I have zero criticisms with the gay rep in this book—it was ownvoices and well done. It’s the reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1. However. I have a strong issue with the way that a lot of the reviewers are reacting to this book, and I have to be honest, a lot of it reeks of women fetishizing gay men. When I read through the positive reviews on here, the running theme seems to be “yeah the war was interesting to learn about and all, but BOYS CUDDLING”, “This was such a cute gay love story”, “soft boys” etc.
Attention, everybody. What the fuck are you talking about? People DIED IN REAL LIFE. LOTS of people. VERY RECENTLY. And the only important thing to you guys is the fetishization and patronization of gay men? Jesus H. Christ, are you listening to yourselves?
Maybe some of you don’t realize that this is based on something that actually happened. In real life. To people who would almost all still be alive today. I hope it’s that you just don’t realize. Because if you do, and you think this is ‘cute’ . . . that’s extremely disturbing.
I don’t know how to get it through to you just how horrifying and harmful this is. To see people calling this a ‘cute gay love story’. I just. Okay. If people were discussing a ‘cute gay love story’ about ‘boys cuddling’ set in the Holocaust while people were brutally murdered around them, would THAT make you cringe? Because this is similar, but this only happened 20 years ago.
Oh, and lets take that a step further. This book about American ‘boys cuddling’ is set during a genocide, where the moral of the story is “Hey, nothing is black and white, and a lot of those victims did awful things too, and maybe they sometimes had it coming”.
I am not even joking or exaggerating. And if you think I’m being dramatic, the author even acknowledges this in his authors note. He quite literally acknowledges that he painted the Albanians in a bad light to show that ‘not everything is black and white’. . . . ”in war, there are multiple sides to every story. All Albanians were not good. All Serbians were not bad. . . . Good people make bad choices. Bad people make good ones. And most people are somewhere in the middle…”
Are. You. SERIOUS? Hey, how about we DON’T try to make the point that not everything is black and white when we are writing a book about a LITERAL GENOCIDE THAT HAPPENED TWENTY YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because of course it was gray in real life. But the first mainstream YA book that looks at this setting, AND it’s not written by a Muslim or someone from this geographical area, AND it centers Americans? This is definitely a little too early to be looking at all the ways the genocide victims were evil. I do acknowledge that the KLA did commit violent acts. However, given the enormous death toll for ethnic Albanians, and the fact that the ethnic cleansing was entirely targeted towards Albanians, I think it is wholly irresponsible to have the story’s main villain be an ethnic Albanian.
Look. I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t read. I’m not one of those people. And hey, lots of people clearly did enjoy this book. But if you think that this is fine, but you would condemn another book that villanized real-life victims of a genocide, or centered Americans in a recent real life tragedy that occurred to a largely Muslim population, or a book that featured multiple cold-blooded Muslim terrorists who’s only goal is to kill and torture and who can’t feel love or loyalty . . . then I just want you to ask yourself why that is.
Is it because this book is about a lesser-known Genocide? That maybe you just aren’t feeling that revulsion because you didn’t know much about what happened?
Is it subconscious Islamophobia? The same way so many ignore suffering happening in the Middle East today, because that’s just over there somewhere?
Is there another reason? Are you able to confidently justify supporting this book despite all of the above, despite the harm it can and will do to real people, real people who’s family and friends were slaughtered in the 90s? Real teens who will undoubtedly have lost uncles and aunts and grandparents, who will see that finally, a mainstream book is touching on what happened to their people, only to pick it up and find themselves painted as the villains?
Then okay. Do it. But please, don’t kid yourself. If you think this is okay, own it. Don’t just ignore what this book is because you wanted it to be something else.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange of an honest review.
I’m going to give you a bit of a history lesson. It is going to be extremely summarized, because I don’t have the space to give you all the information in great detail. If you want to know more—and you should—I would encourage you to do some research yourself.
In the 90s, Yugoslavia broke apart into various different nation states. One of the states that wanted independence was Kosovo. Right beneath Kosovo is Albania, and 90% of people living in Kosovo were ethnically Albanian. Most of these Albanians were also Muslim. Above Kosovo is Serbia, which was largely Orthodox Christians, and Serbia did not want Kosovo to seek independence.
In the 1996, a Kosovan rebel group called the Kosovan Liberation Army formed to fight against their oppression and subjugation, with the goal of seeking independence. They procured weapons, and fought the police and the government for independence in an uprising. Serbian police began to fight back, and started committing atrocities against Albanians, forcing many refugees to flee. Other countries, including the USA, demanded a ceasefire. Following this, the KLA regrouped, and the Yugoslav and Serbian forces responded by ethnically cleansing Albanians from Kosovo. By committing Genocide, essentially. Massacring entire villages, forcing 90% of Kosovo from their homes. Thousands and thousands of girls between the ages of 13 and 19 were raped.
Now, this is a real event, that happened in our very recent past. Not even two decades ago. Babies during the genocide would still be teenagers today. That is how recently it happened. While a surprising amount of Americans have never heard of this genocide, to people from the affected areas, it’s everything. It’s a tragedy that they continue to reel from.
Now, what’s the relevance here, you may ask? Well, a Place for Wolves is set during the Kosovan Genocide. It centers two, non-Muslim Americans, and largely focuses on their suffering, and their fear, whilst being caught in the chaos. There’s something so gross to me about centering our pain and experience in a real-life tragedy that really wasn’t about us. I would like to see this story written by someone who deeply understands it, who feels the pain of their friends and family, who actually was displaced, or threatened. But instead we get the story of privileged Westerners as they viewed the conflict. Which could have been handled well. But oh, it was not. We weren’t watching the suffering inflicted on the Albanian’s viewed through the MC’s eyes. We were watching the MC’s suffering. We were meant to care about the MCs, and screw the genocide victims, really. Which would be fine if this were a fantasy novel, but for fuck’s sake, this novel is set during a REAL LIFE GENOCIDE.
Honestly, reading this felt like the author wanted to set a book in a situation where he could put his MCs at risk and in danger, but he didn’t want to write fantasy, so he decided to set it during the Kosovan genocide. Why do I say this? Because this wasn’t a respectful exploration of a tragedy that really happened. It was all about the MCs, and how scared we are for them, and how much we hope they get out okay so they can return to America and be safe. And, oh yeah, the Kosovans who didn’t get murdered no longer have their family, friends, or homes, but *waves hand vaguely*.
And don’t even get me started on the well-educated Muslim man, Professor Beqiri, who turns out to be a coldblooded terrorist who’s only purpose seems to be to murder and torture and commit harm, even killing his own men. Why, exactly, did the author choose to make the main villain in this story an Albanian Muslim, when it was ALBANIAN MUSLIMS WHO WERE ETHNICALLY CLEANSED? Whatever happened to being aware of what point you’re making with your characters? Another reviewer mentioned that it was somewhat understandable that Professor Beqiri was portrayed as the villain, given that he kidnapped the MCs parents. But that is exactly why I think it was a terrible idea to center this story around fictional Americans. Because most of the readers reading this book will have no prior knowledge of this war, and this will be what they take away from the Genocide. And those who do have knowledge may very well have been affected by the war. Kids. Teenagers. Who already hear about how Muslims are terrorists in the modern world, having to read historical fiction about a tragedy that affected their own family, only to see they’re the evil terrorists once again. In what world is that okay? In what other Genocide would we agree that stories saying the victims were just as wrong should be published?
I am all for ownvoices LGBTQIA. And when I say that, I *mean* it. That’s why I requested this book faster than lightning. But there is a dark side to LGBTQIA books in the community. Specifically, LGBTQIA books that feature a romance between two cis-men. And that, as many of you know, is fetishization. Now I want to clarify – DEAR GOD, I DO NOT MEAN THIS AUTHOR FETISHIZED THIS GAY RELATIONSHIP. I have zero criticisms with the gay rep in this book—it was ownvoices and well done. It’s the reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1. However. I have a strong issue with the way that a lot of the reviewers are reacting to this book, and I have to be honest, a lot of it reeks of women fetishizing gay men. When I read through the positive reviews on here, the running theme seems to be “yeah the war was interesting to learn about and all, but BOYS CUDDLING”, “This was such a cute gay love story”, “soft boys” etc.
Attention, everybody. What the fuck are you talking about? People DIED IN REAL LIFE. LOTS of people. VERY RECENTLY. And the only important thing to you guys is the fetishization and patronization of gay men? Jesus H. Christ, are you listening to yourselves?
Maybe some of you don’t realize that this is based on something that actually happened. In real life. To people who would almost all still be alive today. I hope it’s that you just don’t realize. Because if you do, and you think this is ‘cute’ . . . that’s extremely disturbing.
I don’t know how to get it through to you just how horrifying and harmful this is. To see people calling this a ‘cute gay love story’. I just. Okay. If people were discussing a ‘cute gay love story’ about ‘boys cuddling’ set in the Holocaust while people were brutally murdered around them, would THAT make you cringe? Because this is similar, but this only happened 20 years ago.
Oh, and lets take that a step further. This book about American ‘boys cuddling’ is set during a genocide, where the moral of the story is “Hey, nothing is black and white, and a lot of those victims did awful things too, and maybe they sometimes had it coming”.
I am not even joking or exaggerating. And if you think I’m being dramatic, the author even acknowledges this in his authors note. He quite literally acknowledges that he painted the Albanians in a bad light to show that ‘not everything is black and white’. . . . ”in war, there are multiple sides to every story. All Albanians were not good. All Serbians were not bad. . . . Good people make bad choices. Bad people make good ones. And most people are somewhere in the middle…”
Are. You. SERIOUS? Hey, how about we DON’T try to make the point that not everything is black and white when we are writing a book about a LITERAL GENOCIDE THAT HAPPENED TWENTY YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because of course it was gray in real life. But the first mainstream YA book that looks at this setting, AND it’s not written by a Muslim or someone from this geographical area, AND it centers Americans? This is definitely a little too early to be looking at all the ways the genocide victims were evil. I do acknowledge that the KLA did commit violent acts. However, given the enormous death toll for ethnic Albanians, and the fact that the ethnic cleansing was entirely targeted towards Albanians, I think it is wholly irresponsible to have the story’s main villain be an ethnic Albanian.
Look. I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t read. I’m not one of those people. And hey, lots of people clearly did enjoy this book. But if you think that this is fine, but you would condemn another book that villanized real-life victims of a genocide, or centered Americans in a recent real life tragedy that occurred to a largely Muslim population, or a book that featured multiple cold-blooded Muslim terrorists who’s only goal is to kill and torture and who can’t feel love or loyalty . . . then I just want you to ask yourself why that is.
Is it because this book is about a lesser-known Genocide? That maybe you just aren’t feeling that revulsion because you didn’t know much about what happened?
Is it subconscious Islamophobia? The same way so many ignore suffering happening in the Middle East today, because that’s just over there somewhere?
Is there another reason? Are you able to confidently justify supporting this book despite all of the above, despite the harm it can and will do to real people, real people who’s family and friends were slaughtered in the 90s? Real teens who will undoubtedly have lost uncles and aunts and grandparents, who will see that finally, a mainstream book is touching on what happened to their people, only to pick it up and find themselves painted as the villains?
Then okay. Do it. But please, don’t kid yourself. If you think this is okay, own it. Don’t just ignore what this book is because you wanted it to be something else.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange of an honest review.
July 14, 2023
I’m a bit conflicted with this book. I started it with much enthusiasm, since the book sounded really awesome and I was surprised NetGalley granted me an eARC. But about 37% into the book, the enthusiasm dimmed down.
Because of one big problematic aspect that glared down at me as I raced to finish this book.
Okay spoilers galore, please read it with caution.
The book started with the protagonist, a black gay teen, James Mills writing a letter to his sister, Anna (who was in America the entirety of the book). He hid in a dilapidated hostel with his Brazilian boyfriend, Tomas, before posting the letter to a mailbox nearby. All hell broke loose once he got to the mailbox.
Since then, Tomas and James were on the run, their destination the American embassy in Pristina, the capital of a war wrecked Kosovo. On the way, they encountered lots of things that threatened their lives and all those they held dear.
Okay, now time for the spoiler filled part.
I loved the relationship between James and Tomas. It was so lovingly portrayed, their love for each other growing stronger and stronger as each page passed. They obviously cared for each other and their heat filled banter made me sigh in happiness.
That at least, this book had a happy, healthy LGBTQIAP+ relationship. And on top of that, a gay relationship between two PoC, one black, one brown. And to find healthy, present parents and sibling relationship made this book soar my heart even more. Each letters to Anna Mills showed the close bond James shared with his older sister and I just wanted to sob in joy.
But then came the wreck called Beqiri, or in the earlier chapters, Professor Beqiri.
An Oxford graduated Albanian, his whole presence in the book was reduced down to one cardboard cutout portrayal.
He is a terrorist.
In a blink, the book that made my heart soar soured my mind. It became another book showing Muslim men as a terrorist.
And I’d have not felt as uncomfortable as now if besides being a terrorist, Beqiri was shown with some positive traits. But he was not.
Nope.
I get it that since Beqiri kidnapped and tortured many foreigners, he was a bad guy. He was doing an awful thing. James had his parents held hostage. Of course he wouldn’t and couldn’t see Beqiri as anything but a terrible person. A bad guy. The villain in his story.
But…
Beqiri was shown to be merciless and unsympathetic toward anyone and everyone, even to his own comrades. He fed a dying Serbian soldier to his dogs. He killed one of his men for a mistake by kicking him to death, and didn’t feel the slightest remorse for his best comrade's wounds. As if the independence of Kosovo was his individual goal and nobody else mattered. He was reduced to a terrorist, his humanity stripped bare and into a monster. The author had plenty of places to show he was a grey person. When I said plenty, I meant plenty.
•He could’ve been a doting son, who loved his parents and to reduce their suffering and oppression in this country, he chose this dark path.
•He could’ve been a good mentor or leader or comrade to his fellow fighters, who mourned for their deaths and grieved for them. Who wanted them to live and valued their lives instead of seeing them as mere army to fight for his victory.
•He even could have been showed to be an excellent teacher before the Kosovo war. But he was rather shown as a zealot, a jingo who would do anything to win the war.
During Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971, our freedom fighters fought together and mourned together for one another’s death. But the way Beqiri was shown to be was not as a freedom fighter with shades of grey, rather a black and white Muslim Albanian terrorist killing and kidnapping Americans and Europeans for hostage.
Even when Beqiri was a professor to James, not his family’s kidnapper, he was shown in a negative light. And James was said to be empathetic? Well, he did not empathize with Beqiri as well. If not with a villain like Beqiri, then maybe his people? But no. Not one ounce of empathy did James show toward the locals, not even before the war. Rather they either faded into his POV as clamoring, fear-mongering rebels, or frightened people fleeing the war wrecked Kosovo, or someone who could only terrorize and did not deserve their protests of freedom. James even once said:
James: “So let me guess. Your ragtag group of bandits, fighting for justice across Kosovo, graduated to what? Kidnappings? Beatings?”
Beqiri: “And murder if we needed to, yes…”
Bangladesh was once part of Pakistan. We’d been through a lot of the discrimination Beqiri mentioned his people went through under the Serbian rule. Yet his side wasn’t shown in an empathetic light. None of the discrimination the Albanians faced from the Serbian rulers were shown in the book at all. Which was disheartening, since a Serbian soldier was shown in a positive light, fighting for his country. But anyone fighting for Kosovo’s freedom was shown to be a jingo.
If a group of subjugated people demanded freedom from their oppressors, was it so bad? Yes, Beqiri’s actions were cruel and nothing could justify them. But what the author could’ve shown plenty of times was the locals in a positive light. That war is not black and white, rather shades of grey.
What disappointed me the most was the author’s note at the end of the eARC. He stated he knew he’d painted the Albanians in a villainous hue. This disappointed me the most.
In a time when Muslim ban is still fresh in everyone’s mind, when Hollywood enjoys showing Muslim men as oppressors and terrorists, this portrayal is disheartening.
I am not discouraging or forbidding anyone to buy this book. Far from it, I’ll urge you to read it for its beautiful portrayal of healthy parent-child relationship, the narration from an adoptive black child’s POV, and adorable sibling bond. AND this book has one of the best LGBTQIAP+ representation as well as a black male teen as its narrator and protagonist.
But I’ll also request you to pick up this book knowing its flaw, aware of its problematic Muslim and Albanian portrayals, so you can caution your Muslim and/or Albanian friends before you recommend it to them, or if they pick up this book.
Because of one big problematic aspect that glared down at me as I raced to finish this book.
Okay spoilers galore, please read it with caution.
The book started with the protagonist, a black gay teen, James Mills writing a letter to his sister, Anna (who was in America the entirety of the book). He hid in a dilapidated hostel with his Brazilian boyfriend, Tomas, before posting the letter to a mailbox nearby. All hell broke loose once he got to the mailbox.
Since then, Tomas and James were on the run, their destination the American embassy in Pristina, the capital of a war wrecked Kosovo. On the way, they encountered lots of things that threatened their lives and all those they held dear.
Okay, now time for the spoiler filled part.
I loved the relationship between James and Tomas. It was so lovingly portrayed, their love for each other growing stronger and stronger as each page passed. They obviously cared for each other and their heat filled banter made me sigh in happiness.
That at least, this book had a happy, healthy LGBTQIAP+ relationship. And on top of that, a gay relationship between two PoC, one black, one brown. And to find healthy, present parents and sibling relationship made this book soar my heart even more. Each letters to Anna Mills showed the close bond James shared with his older sister and I just wanted to sob in joy.
But then came the wreck called Beqiri, or in the earlier chapters, Professor Beqiri.
An Oxford graduated Albanian, his whole presence in the book was reduced down to one cardboard cutout portrayal.
He is a terrorist.
In a blink, the book that made my heart soar soured my mind. It became another book showing Muslim men as a terrorist.
And I’d have not felt as uncomfortable as now if besides being a terrorist, Beqiri was shown with some positive traits. But he was not.
Nope.
I get it that since Beqiri kidnapped and tortured many foreigners, he was a bad guy. He was doing an awful thing. James had his parents held hostage. Of course he wouldn’t and couldn’t see Beqiri as anything but a terrible person. A bad guy. The villain in his story.
But…
Beqiri was shown to be merciless and unsympathetic toward anyone and everyone, even to his own comrades. He fed a dying Serbian soldier to his dogs. He killed one of his men for a mistake by kicking him to death, and didn’t feel the slightest remorse for his best comrade's wounds. As if the independence of Kosovo was his individual goal and nobody else mattered. He was reduced to a terrorist, his humanity stripped bare and into a monster. The author had plenty of places to show he was a grey person. When I said plenty, I meant plenty.
•He could’ve been a doting son, who loved his parents and to reduce their suffering and oppression in this country, he chose this dark path.
•He could’ve been a good mentor or leader or comrade to his fellow fighters, who mourned for their deaths and grieved for them. Who wanted them to live and valued their lives instead of seeing them as mere army to fight for his victory.
•He even could have been showed to be an excellent teacher before the Kosovo war. But he was rather shown as a zealot, a jingo who would do anything to win the war.
During Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971, our freedom fighters fought together and mourned together for one another’s death. But the way Beqiri was shown to be was not as a freedom fighter with shades of grey, rather a black and white Muslim Albanian terrorist killing and kidnapping Americans and Europeans for hostage.
Even when Beqiri was a professor to James, not his family’s kidnapper, he was shown in a negative light. And James was said to be empathetic? Well, he did not empathize with Beqiri as well. If not with a villain like Beqiri, then maybe his people? But no. Not one ounce of empathy did James show toward the locals, not even before the war. Rather they either faded into his POV as clamoring, fear-mongering rebels, or frightened people fleeing the war wrecked Kosovo, or someone who could only terrorize and did not deserve their protests of freedom. James even once said:
James: “So let me guess. Your ragtag group of bandits, fighting for justice across Kosovo, graduated to what? Kidnappings? Beatings?”
Beqiri: “And murder if we needed to, yes…”
Bangladesh was once part of Pakistan. We’d been through a lot of the discrimination Beqiri mentioned his people went through under the Serbian rule. Yet his side wasn’t shown in an empathetic light. None of the discrimination the Albanians faced from the Serbian rulers were shown in the book at all. Which was disheartening, since a Serbian soldier was shown in a positive light, fighting for his country. But anyone fighting for Kosovo’s freedom was shown to be a jingo.
If a group of subjugated people demanded freedom from their oppressors, was it so bad? Yes, Beqiri’s actions were cruel and nothing could justify them. But what the author could’ve shown plenty of times was the locals in a positive light. That war is not black and white, rather shades of grey.
What disappointed me the most was the author’s note at the end of the eARC. He stated he knew he’d painted the Albanians in a villainous hue. This disappointed me the most.
In a time when Muslim ban is still fresh in everyone’s mind, when Hollywood enjoys showing Muslim men as oppressors and terrorists, this portrayal is disheartening.
I am not discouraging or forbidding anyone to buy this book. Far from it, I’ll urge you to read it for its beautiful portrayal of healthy parent-child relationship, the narration from an adoptive black child’s POV, and adorable sibling bond. AND this book has one of the best LGBTQIAP+ representation as well as a black male teen as its narrator and protagonist.
But I’ll also request you to pick up this book knowing its flaw, aware of its problematic Muslim and Albanian portrayals, so you can caution your Muslim and/or Albanian friends before you recommend it to them, or if they pick up this book.
Read
February 25, 2019A book about a romance and victimization of two non-Muslim, American boys set during a real-life historical genocide, with the villain being part of the demographic that was ethnically cleansed because - by the author’s own words - not everything is black & white?
FUCKING YIKES, GET THIS SHIT AWAY FROM ME.
FUCKING YIKES, GET THIS SHIT AWAY FROM ME.
Read
February 27, 2019As discussions of this book evolve, it becomes clear to me that the book i blurbed while on submission years ago is either different from the version that went out in arcs, or i have areas of ignorance i need to work on (or both, considering i'm quite ignorant about a great many things.)
Either way, I'm editing my review in light of recent critiques, as it reads as flippant and disrespectful. To those I've hurt by my blurb, I apologize. I am always working to do better, clearly i need to work harder.
Original review below for those invested in history:
Yeah i read it.
It's okay to be jealous, i'd be jealous of me too.
But seriously put this on your TBR people.
Either way, I'm editing my review in light of recent critiques, as it reads as flippant and disrespectful. To those I've hurt by my blurb, I apologize. I am always working to do better, clearly i need to work harder.
Original review below for those invested in history:
Yeah i read it.
It's okay to be jealous, i'd be jealous of me too.
But seriously put this on your TBR people.
Read
February 28, 2019Update 2/28/19: due to my ignorance with regards to the war in Kosovo, and information I’ve since learned, I can no longer in good conscience recommend this book. I hope Kosoko is able to fix the problems that have been raised and find a way to bring this story to readers without causing hurt, at which point I will happily be able to support it again.
I'm going to have a lot to say about this between now and when it comes out. But for now I'll just say: Preorder this book NOW. It's that freaking good.
I'm going to have a lot to say about this between now and when it comes out. But for now I'll just say: Preorder this book NOW. It's that freaking good.
August 28, 2018
EDIT
A Place For Wolves is up for preorder!!!!
Preorder through my indie, and you'll get a signed, personalized copy, with a bonus special edition treat!
East City Books (my indie): http://bit.ly/EastWolves
IndieBound: http://bit.ly/IndieWolves
BN: http://bit.ly/BNWolves
AMZN: http://bit.ly/AMZWolves
I wrote this book, and it's pretty rad, if I do say so myself (though, over the past 3 years it damn near killed me...the price of art, ya know?).
But you can judge for yourself Summer 2019. I hope you enjoy and love these characters, this world, and journey against all odds as much as I do.
A Place For Wolves is up for preorder!!!!
Preorder through my indie, and you'll get a signed, personalized copy, with a bonus special edition treat!
East City Books (my indie): http://bit.ly/EastWolves
IndieBound: http://bit.ly/IndieWolves
BN: http://bit.ly/BNWolves
AMZN: http://bit.ly/AMZWolves
I wrote this book, and it's pretty rad, if I do say so myself (though, over the past 3 years it damn near killed me...the price of art, ya know?).
But you can judge for yourself Summer 2019. I hope you enjoy and love these characters, this world, and journey against all odds as much as I do.
February 26, 2019
Genocide isn't a romantic backdrop for your story.
February 26, 2019
i don't need a book about soft gay boys cuddling during a genocide that neither of them are part of or really affected by, an authors note that says there is two sides to every story of ethnic cleansing, and a muslim villain who comes from the group being ethnically cleansed.
hard pass.
hard pass.
February 26, 2019
If you’re going to write a book that takes place during a time where my culture has endured so much suffering have some goddamn respect. Saying Albanians are not all good and Serbians are not all bad as if the latter didnt commit fucking GENOCIDE against the former is disgusting. I’m so hurt by this this shit just SMELLS. Who tf let this book get published?
February 25, 2019
Thank you to Netgalley and the author for sending me this book in exchange for my honest review.
Actual rating: 2.5/5 stars
I wanted to like this book, I really did. But it just didn't sit with me right.
Now, the gay rep in this book was own voices and was done fantastically.
However, I have and issue with the plot and the history behind it. Now, I know nothing of this war so I can't speak on the accuracy of it, but I had an issue with the MCs both being non-Muslim Americans and sort of "on the outside looking in". It just rubbed me the wrong way. It focused more on their pain and fear than on the actual citizens who had to go through it and couldn't just "run to the embassy".
I'm glad there is more POC LGBTQIAP+ rep coming out, and this book was cute in that way, but I just felt like the plot used in this book just wasn't done well, it came off a little disrespectful.
The romance in this book was great, but, I don't feel like it makes up for the disrespectful plot.
Actual rating: 2.5/5 stars
I wanted to like this book, I really did. But it just didn't sit with me right.
Now, the gay rep in this book was own voices and was done fantastically.
However, I have and issue with the plot and the history behind it. Now, I know nothing of this war so I can't speak on the accuracy of it, but I had an issue with the MCs both being non-Muslim Americans and sort of "on the outside looking in". It just rubbed me the wrong way. It focused more on their pain and fear than on the actual citizens who had to go through it and couldn't just "run to the embassy".
I'm glad there is more POC LGBTQIAP+ rep coming out, and this book was cute in that way, but I just felt like the plot used in this book just wasn't done well, it came off a little disrespectful.
The romance in this book was great, but, I don't feel like it makes up for the disrespectful plot.
Read
April 11, 2021.
February 26, 2019
A book centered on Americans present during a genocide of Muslims, showing those Muslims as terrorists. The author would do well to quit writing.
Want to read
March 10, 2019People may not like what I'm going to say, but I feel like there is a lot of virtue-signalling surrounding this book. While I understand why some people are angry, they should also remember that this is a work of fiction.
It is perhaps somewhat insensitive that what is essentially a love story between two Americans take place in a country which suffered from genocide. However, and I know I risk offending, I do not see why it warrant pulling the book, changing positive reviews into negative ones or shelving the book and writing negative reviews (without ratings) even though you haven't formed your *own* opinion. It is, after all, a work of fiction. Could a love story of two French people trying to escape Berlin during the Nazi uprising not have been written? Could two Americans fleeing Rwanda during the ethnic war not have been written?
Maybe, a more adept writer might have spend more time describing the war, the horror committed to the locals, the warring factions... In short, he might have been more political. But, Jackson wanted to write a love story, so why force him to write a story he hadn't intended to write?
Some people complained that the main villain was Muslim and cried Islamophobia. Hmmm, again from some reviews it seemed his religion wasn't the main focus of the story. So...Besides, once again, this is not a political story. It is a romance. Also, if you wanted to get technical about it, note that the main characters are Americans. Therefore, they are not part of the conflict. Potentially, both side of the war could be ally or enemy. However, again, this beyond the point. This is a freaking love story. It isn't even a book about how war tears apart lovers or a book about war who happens to have romance. It is just a simple love story. The author needed an obstacle, preventing the lover from being reunited and that's what he chose. Frankly, as a Muslim, I don't find the hate about this particular point warranted.
I also found it hypocritical of people switching their positive writing to negative just because they read negative reviews. If you liked the book, own it. Just because some parts are problematic, doesn't mean the entire book should be set on fire. I find it equally ridiculous that people that had planned to read this book are now shelving it. Why not try to get your own opinion? Moreover, the same people moaning now, are the very one that would give a different book 5 stars and be like "some things were a bit problematic but..." You know what I'm not even asking for consistence, but for good sense and fairness.
Besides, Jackson is a new writer. It seems like this is one of his first published novels or perhaps even his debut novel--I find it unfair on him.
I do not appreciate the language being used to describe how problematic the book is. I find it very dramatic. There is a lot of "privilege", "centering", and what not being thrown around.
I feel like people are playing a game and the one who is able to demonstrate how keyed in, how knowledgeable and how aware he is wins.
When I read things like "I do not feel like it represents Albany in a respectful way", I just think, do you even know where it is on the map? Or "I should know more about other countries' history". Maybe you should, but you don't and that's fine. Nobody gave you the title of "Defender of the Other" and "Guardian of the Anti-Oppression Squad". Besides, do you understand that half of the time, you don't know what you're fighting for, and you're so lost in your own narrative that you don't even realise it ?
By the way, note that I'm not saying that the way the book couldn't have been more sensible. However, I feel readers and reviewers are exaggerating and fuelling the drama. I mean, it may not seem like it when you're sitting behind your computer, but this is someone's dreams, labour and sometime livelihood that you're mucking-- and sometimes even destroying. There IS a difference between something being actually vile and wicked, and it being just, well, problematic.
These days, it seems like authors needs a dictionary on "how to not write problematic content to please Goodreads reviewers" or else your book might get an online petition asking for its ban. As a reader, this is extremely unpleasant because throughout the history of literature many books have been banned, sometimes the ban was warranted but most of time, it wasn't. More often than not, it was small-mindedness and self-obsession that caused the bans. Hence, I find the situation here troubling and I feel that other people, especially those claiming to be for justice, should to.
But there is even more at stake, I see a lot of people talk about freedom. However, look at what's happening now. People only saying they don't like what Jackson has written, what they're truly saying is he shouldn't have written it at all. You can inform, you can guide and it is your right to get angry and point out thing you don't like. However, you shouldn't decide what can or cannot be written or what is allowed to think or not allowed to think. Either you're for freedom or you're not, or else you become no better than the alt-right and co.
I personally had no intention to read this book, but I just didn't like what was happening here. And I might just end up reading the book to find out what the fuss was all about.
It is perhaps somewhat insensitive that what is essentially a love story between two Americans take place in a country which suffered from genocide. However, and I know I risk offending, I do not see why it warrant pulling the book, changing positive reviews into negative ones or shelving the book and writing negative reviews (without ratings) even though you haven't formed your *own* opinion. It is, after all, a work of fiction. Could a love story of two French people trying to escape Berlin during the Nazi uprising not have been written? Could two Americans fleeing Rwanda during the ethnic war not have been written?
Maybe, a more adept writer might have spend more time describing the war, the horror committed to the locals, the warring factions... In short, he might have been more political. But, Jackson wanted to write a love story, so why force him to write a story he hadn't intended to write?
Some people complained that the main villain was Muslim and cried Islamophobia. Hmmm, again from some reviews it seemed his religion wasn't the main focus of the story. So...Besides, once again, this is not a political story. It is a romance. Also, if you wanted to get technical about it, note that the main characters are Americans. Therefore, they are not part of the conflict. Potentially, both side of the war could be ally or enemy. However, again, this beyond the point. This is a freaking love story. It isn't even a book about how war tears apart lovers or a book about war who happens to have romance. It is just a simple love story. The author needed an obstacle, preventing the lover from being reunited and that's what he chose. Frankly, as a Muslim, I don't find the hate about this particular point warranted.
I also found it hypocritical of people switching their positive writing to negative just because they read negative reviews. If you liked the book, own it. Just because some parts are problematic, doesn't mean the entire book should be set on fire. I find it equally ridiculous that people that had planned to read this book are now shelving it. Why not try to get your own opinion? Moreover, the same people moaning now, are the very one that would give a different book 5 stars and be like "some things were a bit problematic but..." You know what I'm not even asking for consistence, but for good sense and fairness.
Besides, Jackson is a new writer. It seems like this is one of his first published novels or perhaps even his debut novel--I find it unfair on him.
I do not appreciate the language being used to describe how problematic the book is. I find it very dramatic. There is a lot of "privilege", "centering", and what not being thrown around.
I feel like people are playing a game and the one who is able to demonstrate how keyed in, how knowledgeable and how aware he is wins.
When I read things like "I do not feel like it represents Albany in a respectful way", I just think, do you even know where it is on the map? Or "I should know more about other countries' history". Maybe you should, but you don't and that's fine. Nobody gave you the title of "Defender of the Other" and "Guardian of the Anti-Oppression Squad". Besides, do you understand that half of the time, you don't know what you're fighting for, and you're so lost in your own narrative that you don't even realise it ?
By the way, note that I'm not saying that the way the book couldn't have been more sensible. However, I feel readers and reviewers are exaggerating and fuelling the drama. I mean, it may not seem like it when you're sitting behind your computer, but this is someone's dreams, labour and sometime livelihood that you're mucking-- and sometimes even destroying. There IS a difference between something being actually vile and wicked, and it being just, well, problematic.
These days, it seems like authors needs a dictionary on "how to not write problematic content to please Goodreads reviewers" or else your book might get an online petition asking for its ban. As a reader, this is extremely unpleasant because throughout the history of literature many books have been banned, sometimes the ban was warranted but most of time, it wasn't. More often than not, it was small-mindedness and self-obsession that caused the bans. Hence, I find the situation here troubling and I feel that other people, especially those claiming to be for justice, should to.
But there is even more at stake, I see a lot of people talk about freedom. However, look at what's happening now. People only saying they don't like what Jackson has written, what they're truly saying is he shouldn't have written it at all. You can inform, you can guide and it is your right to get angry and point out thing you don't like. However, you shouldn't decide what can or cannot be written or what is allowed to think or not allowed to think. Either you're for freedom or you're not, or else you become no better than the alt-right and co.
I personally had no intention to read this book, but I just didn't like what was happening here. And I might just end up reading the book to find out what the fuss was all about.
Read
February 26, 2019After reading this review and and this one, I'm not going to read this book. Usually, one or two reviews don't put me off reading a book that I was interested in but this is too much for me. I'm happy that at least the own voices PoC LGBTQAIP+ rep is good but it doesn't justify how the setting is handled and the choices the author made about the main characters and the characters they chose to be the villains.
Please, at least read the first review it is well written and, if you don't know about this genocide, I hope that you research it, no matter if you are going to read the book or not. This is something that happened ~20 years ago!
Please, at least read the first review it is well written and, if you don't know about this genocide, I hope that you research it, no matter if you are going to read the book or not. This is something that happened ~20 years ago!
February 27, 2019
I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review.
Confession: I finished this book a while ago, and I have been putting off my review because I was hesitant to bring my concerns forward. This book has had largely positive reviews, and I was worried I had read it incorrectly. While the LGBTQ rep in this book is important, I found myself extremely uncomfortable with other aspects. But since I wasn't an ownvoices reviewer, I wanted to see if other people would weigh in. Now that others have begun to call out this book, I think it's important I share why I think this book was poorly handled.
Some context: I am not Albanian, but I have close Albanian friends that fled the genocide as children. I grew up hearing their stories about the war and what it was like to scrap for a living as refugees in America. When I saw this book announcement I had my concerns. My friends are only in their late twenties. This genocide took their loved ones away. I am always leery of Americans writing outside of their lane, and this isn't the first (or last) time we've seen an American use historical backdrop as edgy scene setting.
My main issue with this is that the main villain is a Muslim man who is a victim of the genocide. The author defended this in his author's letter, claiming there are multiple sides / a gray area / etc, but how can you claim that with a genocide? In my view, that would be like setting this book in the Holocaust or the Cambodian genocide, and claiming there were "multiple" sides.
Let me stress that I wanted to love this book. I want to support marginalized authors. I wanted it to be something I could give to my Albanian friends who feel like the world has already forgotten them. But the lack of care for an atrocity that has living victims not yet in their thirties is staggering. A genocide is not a convenient plot point.
From a craft perspective, this book is fine. It's nothing that leaps off the page and it's not terrible, although the narration does ramble. I appreciated the value of a wonderful romance between queer boys, especially with the qpoc rep, but the behavior on the part of the author (making excuses, and now, apparently asking people to vote up positive goodreads review so he can bury the ownvoices Albanian reviewer....?) and the lack of care for such a recent atrocity ruined the book for me.
I'm also disheartened by some of the response online (largely, it seems that the same voices who were eager to tear down an immigrant debut are now talking about call-ins and being respectful and....?) but I don't want that to be the heart of my review. In the end, my concern is with the actual material of this book, and how it was handled. This could have been a good book--if the author had put in the time. If the author had done their research, handled it with care, and made certain they did everything in their power to understand the cultural backdrop of a /real life atrocity/ they were about to fling their characters into.
This book, in the end, probably should have been written by someone else that could take the time to do a proper amount of research. I wish the author well, and hope he will do better in the future.
Confession: I finished this book a while ago, and I have been putting off my review because I was hesitant to bring my concerns forward. This book has had largely positive reviews, and I was worried I had read it incorrectly. While the LGBTQ rep in this book is important, I found myself extremely uncomfortable with other aspects. But since I wasn't an ownvoices reviewer, I wanted to see if other people would weigh in. Now that others have begun to call out this book, I think it's important I share why I think this book was poorly handled.
Some context: I am not Albanian, but I have close Albanian friends that fled the genocide as children. I grew up hearing their stories about the war and what it was like to scrap for a living as refugees in America. When I saw this book announcement I had my concerns. My friends are only in their late twenties. This genocide took their loved ones away. I am always leery of Americans writing outside of their lane, and this isn't the first (or last) time we've seen an American use historical backdrop as edgy scene setting.
My main issue with this is that the main villain is a Muslim man who is a victim of the genocide. The author defended this in his author's letter, claiming there are multiple sides / a gray area / etc, but how can you claim that with a genocide? In my view, that would be like setting this book in the Holocaust or the Cambodian genocide, and claiming there were "multiple" sides.
Let me stress that I wanted to love this book. I want to support marginalized authors. I wanted it to be something I could give to my Albanian friends who feel like the world has already forgotten them. But the lack of care for an atrocity that has living victims not yet in their thirties is staggering. A genocide is not a convenient plot point.
From a craft perspective, this book is fine. It's nothing that leaps off the page and it's not terrible, although the narration does ramble. I appreciated the value of a wonderful romance between queer boys, especially with the qpoc rep, but the behavior on the part of the author (making excuses, and now, apparently asking people to vote up positive goodreads review so he can bury the ownvoices Albanian reviewer....?) and the lack of care for such a recent atrocity ruined the book for me.
I'm also disheartened by some of the response online (largely, it seems that the same voices who were eager to tear down an immigrant debut are now talking about call-ins and being respectful and....?) but I don't want that to be the heart of my review. In the end, my concern is with the actual material of this book, and how it was handled. This could have been a good book--if the author had put in the time. If the author had done their research, handled it with care, and made certain they did everything in their power to understand the cultural backdrop of a /real life atrocity/ they were about to fling their characters into.
This book, in the end, probably should have been written by someone else that could take the time to do a proper amount of research. I wish the author well, and hope he will do better in the future.
April 9, 2019
Hot damn.
That was one of the best debuts I have ever read. The characters, the story, the writing... all so, so good. Bonus points for rep and bringing historical events to life.
I adored this. Even though I was anxious over the lives of my main men throughout the whole novel.
Full review to come!
That was one of the best debuts I have ever read. The characters, the story, the writing... all so, so good. Bonus points for rep and bringing historical events to life.
I adored this. Even though I was anxious over the lives of my main men throughout the whole novel.
Full review to come!
no-thanks
February 26, 2019I added this to my to read shelf just based on seeing that it was being compared to Aristotle and Dante + Code Name Verity, but after reading some reviews I'm no longer interested as the book is coming off as very disrespectful to the communities that were impacted from this event.
Check out this review if you're curious: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Check out this review if you're curious: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
February 27, 2019
How about we don’t vilify victims of genocide and falsely compare them to their oppressors because they choose violence to fight back? Mmkay?
December 18, 2018
I really tried hard with this book, but I could not finish it. The description, comparing it to Code Name Verity and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, made me super excited to read it, because I loved both those books. But I just couldn’t get into it. Choppy writing and an unbelievable plot (and not in a good way) made this a forgettable read for me. I tried a few times to get into it, and I just couldn’t. I knew I just needed to call it a day and shelf it. Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Read
January 31, 2022a book with blatant islamophobia? keep it
dnf
January 10, 2019I'm not not enjoying this book but I'm not really enjoying it either. The setting feels very opaque to me at 50 pages in, and that's after doing a bunch of googling about the Kosovo war (when and where the book is set). And I don't feel especially interested in the main character. I think other people will probably love this book, but I'm trying to get better at not forcing myself through books I'm not enjoying. So bail!
February 9, 2019
4.5 stars!
For the past two days I have been engrossed in this book. You know how I know it’s good? Because my 15 minute pumping (and reading) sessions started stretching to 20 minutes - even at 3 am!!!
This book is Aristotle and Dante meets How I Live Now. Two of my favorite books!! I loved James. I loved the way his story unfolded. I loved the letters and relationship he had with his sister.
Aw heck, I loved this book - everyone should read this!!
The setting could almost seem post apocalyptic except for it isn’t. It’s set in 1998 during the Kosovo war.
It’s a book about bravery and love and survival.
The authors note says it all ”in war, there are multiple sides to every story. All Albanians were not good. All Serbians were not bad, and as one can see, characters and people, can (and usually do) hold both alignments within them. Good people make bad choices. Bad people make good ones. And most people are somewhere in the middle…”
Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS fire for an advanced copy of this book!!!
For the past two days I have been engrossed in this book. You know how I know it’s good? Because my 15 minute pumping (and reading) sessions started stretching to 20 minutes - even at 3 am!!!
This book is Aristotle and Dante meets How I Live Now. Two of my favorite books!! I loved James. I loved the way his story unfolded. I loved the letters and relationship he had with his sister.
Aw heck, I loved this book - everyone should read this!!
The setting could almost seem post apocalyptic except for it isn’t. It’s set in 1998 during the Kosovo war.
It’s a book about bravery and love and survival.
The authors note says it all ”in war, there are multiple sides to every story. All Albanians were not good. All Serbians were not bad, and as one can see, characters and people, can (and usually do) hold both alignments within them. Good people make bad choices. Bad people make good ones. And most people are somewhere in the middle…”
Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS fire for an advanced copy of this book!!!
February 27, 2019
This guy is currently begging people across the internet to five star his book. He gets one star for making an absolute mess of the history of the Kosovan Genocide. It’s a classic author insertion trope and I’ve never had any time for it.
no
February 26, 2019Please see this review for reasons why I'm not going to read this book.
March 4, 2019
Okay, I've just finished the book.
I will give a full review tomorrow, but I just want to make one very important point: at no point, anywhere in this novel, is the main villain's religion mentioned or implied. Absolutely nothing the character says or does indicates that he is Muslim.
Regardless of the religious makeup of the people of Kosovo in the late '90s or today, not everyone was Muslim. That's true for a great deal of places on this planet. Not everyone practices or is a member of any religion.
This notion that some poor, pitiful Muslim was made the villain of this story is very, very, VERY wrong. I don't think Islam is even mentioned ONCE in the novel.
Anyway, I'm going to sleep on it and write a full review tomorrow. And it will be angry.
Merged review:
Well, you may have heard about this book – a gay YA romance/thriller was supposed to be published either in late March or early April, got a lot of backlash because of supposed insensitivities to Muslims given its setting, and was withdrawn from publication by the author.
I, like many others, was granted an eARC by the publisher, Sourcebooks Fire, shortly before the author withdrew the book from publication. I just finished the book last night, since my copy was still valid, and this is my honest review. It may not necessarily be unbiased, but it is honest.
First, I will simply assess the book itself. Then I will talk about the controversy surrounding the book. This book was a little over 300 pages. It is told from the perspective of James Mills, a black boy who is also gay and adopted. His parents are highly educated aid workers – his mother is a doctor, and his father is an engineer. They travel around the world offering their expertise, and they’ve brought their kids, Anna and James, along, so James has been around the world already. In the novel, however, Anna has already gone to college at Georgetown. He and his boyfriend wake up one day to find that James’s parents have gone missing, their home ransacked, and the town completely empty. A letter left behind reveals that his parents have been abducted, and that James and his boyfriend need to get to the embassy. This story is their attempted journey to safety.
The book alternates between James’s present-tense narrative and the letters he writes to Anna. It is in the letters we learn about James’s life before the Kosovo War and how his relationship with Tomas Sousa, his Brazilian boyfriend, started.
James’s voice is good and he is witty at times. The action in the present-day narrative is a stark contrast to the letters he sends to his sister, since life seemed very normal – going to school, exploring the town and surrounding area, hanging out with his classmates and slowly falling love with Tomas. His narrative is quite dark, as the story, at its core, is one of survival. James ends up killing at least two people on their journey to the embassy.
There is also violence, and it is graphically described. I thought it was kind of slow at the beginning, but picked up about halfway through the book.
The villain is suitably powerful and infuriating…and also brutal. Not much is said about the actual conflict that the boys get caught up in – the main antagonists are members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an organization that existed in real life, and we see foreshadowing of the villain himself and their slow takeover of the town in James’s letters to Anna.
There isn’t a whole lot of what I would call SJW preaching, except for one incident with a stereotypically blond-haired, blue-eyed, sharp-jawed German boy named Georg, who basically calls Tomas a faggot in German, or something. James punches his lights out, and is disciplined by his parents for it. Also, James uses the phrase “toxic masculinity” in one of his letters, and I am pretty sure I didn’t hear that phrase until recently. Based on where James is at the time of the Kosovo War, which was in the late 90s, he and I would be roughly the same age, give or take a couple of years. I also read a lot of teen and women’s magazines…and no mention of “toxic masculinity.”
Since this was an eARC, there were some punctuation errors and other problems, most notably some incorrect word usage that I found a bit confusing. I had to guess at what the author actually meant.
As I said, it picks up about halfway through, and is quickly-paced, but that pacing seems to be interrupted by the letters to Anna. Near the end, you’ll just want to know what happens next, not the weird shit James wanted to share with his sister (such as the first time he and Tomas have sex…I don’t know about anyone else, but I have two sisters and we didn’t talk about our sex lives with each other…that would have been weird).
So the end…the climax is good and satisfying, but the actual resolution left me wanting. The Epilogue is told in the third-person, from Anna’s perspective, and then it ends.
I also read through the Author’s Note, and I pretty much agreed with what the author was trying to say – that, often times in conflicts such as the Kosovo War, nobody is totally innocent or totally evil. Not all Serbians were evil, and not all KLA members were good. I was, however, surprised that the author’s research was done with only three or four resources, all of which were listed at the end of the author’s note.
Not only that, I still don’t know why the author thought this particular incident warranted a YA thriller, beyond wanting more people to know about it. Did he have any sort of connection to the Kosovo War?
I would normally give this book three stars on the GoodReads scale…maybe three and a half, but I gave it four stars for having a nuanced message on the nature of war and such.
So now that’s the review of the book. Now I want to discuss the issues surrounding the book.
It is said that this book is insensitive to the Albanian Muslims that were supposedly genocided by the Serbians. The book doesn’t go heavily into the conflict, which makes sense, since James and Tomas are there as its happening. Furthermore, they’re both foreigners to the land. They probably wouldn’t have the deeper understanding of a native who’s been living there for a long time or their whole lives. I wondered why the author chose to make an American kid his main character, other than the whole “staying in one’s lane” nonsense. I thought it was even more baffling that he chose another foreigner as the love interest. It might have been more interesting if James’s love interest had been a local boy. That would have also required a lot more research, and might have made it far too political for a YA novel, so I dunno.
None of that warrants cancelling the publication of this book, however. The conflict itself is handled well and not in an offensive way. The only time we really get a whole lot of romance is in James’s letters to Anna. Whenever they are romantic to each other in the present-tense narrative, it’s in the context of, “we might die here, so we should die together” or “I am not leaving you behind.” Since they’re both trying to get to the embassy (and later on, to rescue James’s mother), there isn’t much time for making out or having sex. They’re trying not to get their shoes stolen, or shot by KLA goons, etc. They’re trying to survive in a foreign country during a violent conflict in the dead of winter. That’s how gritty it is. Oh, and both boys wisely stay as far away from potential spots of conflict, and for good reason, so we don’t really see much of the conflict – just their attempts to survive.
I don’t think it is insensitive to the people that suffered through it, unless you count a couple of foreigners being present during the conflict insensitive. I think the people that complained about this book were making a big deal out of nothing.
Now, about the villain. We first meet the villain in James’s letters. He describes his new teacher, Professor Beqiri, as an Oxford-educated snob who, nonetheless, is a good teacher and expects a lot of his students. His teacher is also very anti-Serbian and expects his political beliefs to be reflected in the work he assigns to his students. Yeah, we Conservatives won’t be surprised at that. After all, a great deal of our public school teachers basically parrot their political beliefs to their students and expect those students to regurgitate those beliefs in their schoolwork.
So, it turns out that his well-dressed, well-groomed teacher abducted his parents and some of the other foreigners, including Clara, a German girl with an ambassador for a father, to help in the KLA’s efforts. He became a professor to these foreigners so that he could get closer to them.
Beqiri is an extremist and a zealot, but for the KLA’s cause, which is independence. At no point in the novel is it ever indicated that Beqiri is religious, much less Muslim. His one and only goal is that of the KLA’s goal – independence for Kosovo. He’s not a Muslim terrorist, and in fact, I don’t think Beqiri is religious at all, especially given that he’s Oxford-educated. Now, I am sure that a great deal of the KLA might have been Muslim, but that does not mean all of them were religious.
Then again, the left seems to think that Islam is an ethnicity or race. It is not. A white, red-haired dude can be Muslim, you know. Anybody can be Muslim. It is a religion, not a race or ethnicity.
So, in conclusion, the critics are utterly full of shit. This wasn’t insulting to Muslims. It took a nuanced view of the Kosovo War, and since, in the eyes of these people, Muslims can do no wrong, because they’re rather high on the Progressive Stack of Victimhood. This is also one reason why they find 9/11 memorials so offensive. Who gives a shit about the people murdered by Muslim fanatics – Muslims everywhere might feel discriminated against, and that’s clearly more important than the memory of our countrymen!
Make no mistake – the attack on the book was politically motivated. The author did not show the proper deference to one of the left’s pet victim groups. The author, though he can claim Black and Gay Victimhood Points, did not check his Privilege. Therefore, he had to be punished.
I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for granting me a copy of this book.
Originally posted here: http://bookreviews.elainemarias.com/?...
I will give a full review tomorrow, but I just want to make one very important point: at no point, anywhere in this novel, is the main villain's religion mentioned or implied. Absolutely nothing the character says or does indicates that he is Muslim.
Regardless of the religious makeup of the people of Kosovo in the late '90s or today, not everyone was Muslim. That's true for a great deal of places on this planet. Not everyone practices or is a member of any religion.
This notion that some poor, pitiful Muslim was made the villain of this story is very, very, VERY wrong. I don't think Islam is even mentioned ONCE in the novel.
Anyway, I'm going to sleep on it and write a full review tomorrow. And it will be angry.
Merged review:
Well, you may have heard about this book – a gay YA romance/thriller was supposed to be published either in late March or early April, got a lot of backlash because of supposed insensitivities to Muslims given its setting, and was withdrawn from publication by the author.
I, like many others, was granted an eARC by the publisher, Sourcebooks Fire, shortly before the author withdrew the book from publication. I just finished the book last night, since my copy was still valid, and this is my honest review. It may not necessarily be unbiased, but it is honest.
First, I will simply assess the book itself. Then I will talk about the controversy surrounding the book. This book was a little over 300 pages. It is told from the perspective of James Mills, a black boy who is also gay and adopted. His parents are highly educated aid workers – his mother is a doctor, and his father is an engineer. They travel around the world offering their expertise, and they’ve brought their kids, Anna and James, along, so James has been around the world already. In the novel, however, Anna has already gone to college at Georgetown. He and his boyfriend wake up one day to find that James’s parents have gone missing, their home ransacked, and the town completely empty. A letter left behind reveals that his parents have been abducted, and that James and his boyfriend need to get to the embassy. This story is their attempted journey to safety.
The book alternates between James’s present-tense narrative and the letters he writes to Anna. It is in the letters we learn about James’s life before the Kosovo War and how his relationship with Tomas Sousa, his Brazilian boyfriend, started.
James’s voice is good and he is witty at times. The action in the present-day narrative is a stark contrast to the letters he sends to his sister, since life seemed very normal – going to school, exploring the town and surrounding area, hanging out with his classmates and slowly falling love with Tomas. His narrative is quite dark, as the story, at its core, is one of survival. James ends up killing at least two people on their journey to the embassy.
There is also violence, and it is graphically described. I thought it was kind of slow at the beginning, but picked up about halfway through the book.
The villain is suitably powerful and infuriating…and also brutal. Not much is said about the actual conflict that the boys get caught up in – the main antagonists are members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an organization that existed in real life, and we see foreshadowing of the villain himself and their slow takeover of the town in James’s letters to Anna.
There isn’t a whole lot of what I would call SJW preaching, except for one incident with a stereotypically blond-haired, blue-eyed, sharp-jawed German boy named Georg, who basically calls Tomas a faggot in German, or something. James punches his lights out, and is disciplined by his parents for it. Also, James uses the phrase “toxic masculinity” in one of his letters, and I am pretty sure I didn’t hear that phrase until recently. Based on where James is at the time of the Kosovo War, which was in the late 90s, he and I would be roughly the same age, give or take a couple of years. I also read a lot of teen and women’s magazines…and no mention of “toxic masculinity.”
Since this was an eARC, there were some punctuation errors and other problems, most notably some incorrect word usage that I found a bit confusing. I had to guess at what the author actually meant.
As I said, it picks up about halfway through, and is quickly-paced, but that pacing seems to be interrupted by the letters to Anna. Near the end, you’ll just want to know what happens next, not the weird shit James wanted to share with his sister (such as the first time he and Tomas have sex…I don’t know about anyone else, but I have two sisters and we didn’t talk about our sex lives with each other…that would have been weird).
So the end…the climax is good and satisfying, but the actual resolution left me wanting. The Epilogue is told in the third-person, from Anna’s perspective, and then it ends.
I also read through the Author’s Note, and I pretty much agreed with what the author was trying to say – that, often times in conflicts such as the Kosovo War, nobody is totally innocent or totally evil. Not all Serbians were evil, and not all KLA members were good. I was, however, surprised that the author’s research was done with only three or four resources, all of which were listed at the end of the author’s note.
Not only that, I still don’t know why the author thought this particular incident warranted a YA thriller, beyond wanting more people to know about it. Did he have any sort of connection to the Kosovo War?
I would normally give this book three stars on the GoodReads scale…maybe three and a half, but I gave it four stars for having a nuanced message on the nature of war and such.
So now that’s the review of the book. Now I want to discuss the issues surrounding the book.
It is said that this book is insensitive to the Albanian Muslims that were supposedly genocided by the Serbians. The book doesn’t go heavily into the conflict, which makes sense, since James and Tomas are there as its happening. Furthermore, they’re both foreigners to the land. They probably wouldn’t have the deeper understanding of a native who’s been living there for a long time or their whole lives. I wondered why the author chose to make an American kid his main character, other than the whole “staying in one’s lane” nonsense. I thought it was even more baffling that he chose another foreigner as the love interest. It might have been more interesting if James’s love interest had been a local boy. That would have also required a lot more research, and might have made it far too political for a YA novel, so I dunno.
None of that warrants cancelling the publication of this book, however. The conflict itself is handled well and not in an offensive way. The only time we really get a whole lot of romance is in James’s letters to Anna. Whenever they are romantic to each other in the present-tense narrative, it’s in the context of, “we might die here, so we should die together” or “I am not leaving you behind.” Since they’re both trying to get to the embassy (and later on, to rescue James’s mother), there isn’t much time for making out or having sex. They’re trying not to get their shoes stolen, or shot by KLA goons, etc. They’re trying to survive in a foreign country during a violent conflict in the dead of winter. That’s how gritty it is. Oh, and both boys wisely stay as far away from potential spots of conflict, and for good reason, so we don’t really see much of the conflict – just their attempts to survive.
I don’t think it is insensitive to the people that suffered through it, unless you count a couple of foreigners being present during the conflict insensitive. I think the people that complained about this book were making a big deal out of nothing.
Now, about the villain. We first meet the villain in James’s letters. He describes his new teacher, Professor Beqiri, as an Oxford-educated snob who, nonetheless, is a good teacher and expects a lot of his students. His teacher is also very anti-Serbian and expects his political beliefs to be reflected in the work he assigns to his students. Yeah, we Conservatives won’t be surprised at that. After all, a great deal of our public school teachers basically parrot their political beliefs to their students and expect those students to regurgitate those beliefs in their schoolwork.
So, it turns out that his well-dressed, well-groomed teacher abducted his parents and some of the other foreigners, including Clara, a German girl with an ambassador for a father, to help in the KLA’s efforts. He became a professor to these foreigners so that he could get closer to them.
Beqiri is an extremist and a zealot, but for the KLA’s cause, which is independence. At no point in the novel is it ever indicated that Beqiri is religious, much less Muslim. His one and only goal is that of the KLA’s goal – independence for Kosovo. He’s not a Muslim terrorist, and in fact, I don’t think Beqiri is religious at all, especially given that he’s Oxford-educated. Now, I am sure that a great deal of the KLA might have been Muslim, but that does not mean all of them were religious.
Then again, the left seems to think that Islam is an ethnicity or race. It is not. A white, red-haired dude can be Muslim, you know. Anybody can be Muslim. It is a religion, not a race or ethnicity.
So, in conclusion, the critics are utterly full of shit. This wasn’t insulting to Muslims. It took a nuanced view of the Kosovo War, and since, in the eyes of these people, Muslims can do no wrong, because they’re rather high on the Progressive Stack of Victimhood. This is also one reason why they find 9/11 memorials so offensive. Who gives a shit about the people murdered by Muslim fanatics – Muslims everywhere might feel discriminated against, and that’s clearly more important than the memory of our countrymen!
Make no mistake – the attack on the book was politically motivated. The author did not show the proper deference to one of the left’s pet victim groups. The author, though he can claim Black and Gay Victimhood Points, did not check his Privilege. Therefore, he had to be punished.
I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for granting me a copy of this book.
Originally posted here: http://bookreviews.elainemarias.com/?...
February 27, 2019
update 2/26/19: I saw some things people were saying on twitter about this book so I decided to go read some reviews and... wow. I didn't realize how wildly uneducated I am about the history surrounding the time period of the story, but I definitely know more now, and I agree a lot with what people are saying and the problems they're having with this book. I don't believe Kosoko Jackson had ill intent, but the way in which he chose to portray a tragedy that was less than 25 years ago and the voices he chose to illuminate were not the move, and I see that clearly now after learning more about what happened in Kosovo during this time. I'm lowering my rating because of this new information and because I'm kind of horrified with the portrayal of events in this after learning about what actually happened.
I went into this book with kind of low expectations, and ended up actually enjoying it a lot. I loved the characters and the story, and the fact that it was about a part of history that I know nothing about. My complaint is mainly with the writing. I didn't love the writing style and some of the dialogue was kind of cringy. Also, I can appreciate a good open ending, but this one left too many loose ends. Then again maybe he was trying to set up for a sequel? Either way, the ending was very unsatisfying and I'm bitter that I don't know the fate of a lot of the characters.
I went into this book with kind of low expectations, and ended up actually enjoying it a lot. I loved the characters and the story, and the fact that it was about a part of history that I know nothing about. My complaint is mainly with the writing. I didn't love the writing style and some of the dialogue was kind of cringy. Also, I can appreciate a good open ending, but this one left too many loose ends. Then again maybe he was trying to set up for a sequel? Either way, the ending was very unsatisfying and I'm bitter that I don't know the fate of a lot of the characters.
February 26, 2019
Warnings: physical violence, gun violence, mentions of torture, depiction of war and riots, medical emergency, homophobia
Edit [26 Feb 2109]:
In light of this recent review by an OV reviewer (please do go and read it), I would like to apologize for failing to recognize the problematic aspects of this book, least of which is the portrayal of Albanian muslims, due to my limited knowledge of an issue that happened in very recent history, and the more importantly, the cultural aspects of it. I see now that the setting of it itself was harmful, and though I do love the writing, characterization and representation of queer POC, it also is important to note other problematic portrayals. I'm leaving my original review below (without any changes), but I do ask people to keep in mind the views from an OV reviewer when choosing to read a book about something you do not know.
Jackson places a story about love and survival against the backdrop of a war, in a historical context without taking us away from it. The thing about this book is, even though it is set in 1997, you can feel like you are there, in Kosovo, while the Kosovo war was taking place (something which I had to look up because guess what, I never knew about this! So yay for historical fiction enlightening me about things that happened in my own lifetime) and it is quite realistic, being from James, a gay black kid who is with his parents (USAID workers) when this breaks out. He and his boyfriend Tomas, another USAID workers' kid, are on the run, trying to get to the embassy and back to their parents but before they get there, they have to navigate a treacherous country which is practically in lockdown.
James' journey is alternated with the letters he wrote to his elder sister before the events of the novel, so while we are with James and Tomas as they are slowly moving across the Kosovo countryside, we are also getting the story of how James and Tomas came together; the signs that James saw before the eventual breakout, the rising tensions and the encroaching paranoia are mostly in subtext while he teases his sister about her college life. He and Tomas are being educated along with other kids like them, by a local professor, and one whose anti-Serbian sensibilities somehow went unnoticed. It is a tale of war, and how there are different ways to influence the world's viewpoint of a situation. It is brutal, tense and scary - and yet Tomas and James give a light to it, in the way they are in this together, going through all the terrible things but still being each others' rock, in the things they do to keep the other alive.
In short, a badass realistic novel with love and war.
Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Sourcebooks Fire, via Edelweiss.
Edit [26 Feb 2109]:
In light of this recent review by an OV reviewer (please do go and read it), I would like to apologize for failing to recognize the problematic aspects of this book, least of which is the portrayal of Albanian muslims, due to my limited knowledge of an issue that happened in very recent history, and the more importantly, the cultural aspects of it. I see now that the setting of it itself was harmful, and though I do love the writing, characterization and representation of queer POC, it also is important to note other problematic portrayals. I'm leaving my original review below (without any changes), but I do ask people to keep in mind the views from an OV reviewer when choosing to read a book about something you do not know.
Jackson places a story about love and survival against the backdrop of a war, in a historical context without taking us away from it. The thing about this book is, even though it is set in 1997, you can feel like you are there, in Kosovo, while the Kosovo war was taking place (something which I had to look up because guess what, I never knew about this! So yay for historical fiction enlightening me about things that happened in my own lifetime) and it is quite realistic, being from James, a gay black kid who is with his parents (USAID workers) when this breaks out. He and his boyfriend Tomas, another USAID workers' kid, are on the run, trying to get to the embassy and back to their parents but before they get there, they have to navigate a treacherous country which is practically in lockdown.
James' journey is alternated with the letters he wrote to his elder sister before the events of the novel, so while we are with James and Tomas as they are slowly moving across the Kosovo countryside, we are also getting the story of how James and Tomas came together; the signs that James saw before the eventual breakout, the rising tensions and the encroaching paranoia are mostly in subtext while he teases his sister about her college life. He and Tomas are being educated along with other kids like them, by a local professor, and one whose anti-Serbian sensibilities somehow went unnoticed. It is a tale of war, and how there are different ways to influence the world's viewpoint of a situation. It is brutal, tense and scary - and yet Tomas and James give a light to it, in the way they are in this together, going through all the terrible things but still being each others' rock, in the things they do to keep the other alive.
In short, a badass realistic novel with love and war.
Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Sourcebooks Fire, via Edelweiss.
February 26, 2019
I originally rated this book 2 stars when I read it last month. I didn't enjoy it, but I felt that it could still hold some value for other readers. Quoted below are the reasons I gave in my original review as to why I personally didn't enjoy it:
Since then, I'd heard about the circumstances surrounding the real (and very recent) genocide that this book took place in. And that review (plus the author's reaction to the very valid criticisms) put me off entirely.
Sadly, I'm re-rating this book 1 star. The way the genocide was portrayed in this would definitely not be something that would sit well with me if I was the one to experience it firsthand.
(Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me a copy before publication for a review.)
"1) I don't think this book is written for me. I went into this expecting a historical fiction with LGBTQ+ elements, but what I was getting was 99% love story set in a 1% backdrop of war. For me, it was too much love story, and not enough learning about the war and how we got to this point. I do chalk this up to being my own personal taste, and not the fault of the author.
2) I found the writing choppy. Urgent war bits kept being interspersed by the mc's lovey-dovey thoughts, and I found it a bit jarring everytime this happened. However, again, this may not have had anything to do with the author, but more so the fact that I'm a bit impatient with romance bits."
Since then, I'd heard about the circumstances surrounding the real (and very recent) genocide that this book took place in. And that review (plus the author's reaction to the very valid criticisms) put me off entirely.
Sadly, I'm re-rating this book 1 star. The way the genocide was portrayed in this would definitely not be something that would sit well with me if I was the one to experience it firsthand.
(Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me a copy before publication for a review.)
October 6, 2018
This book is amazing, and it combines so many elements into a delicious smoothie of flawlessness. Part historical thriller (I guess the '90s are "historical" now?!), part war drama, part love story--WOLVES is everything you didn't know you needed. I have so much love and admiration for the queer, black main character who is on the run with his boyfriend in the midst of the start of the Kosovo War. READ. THIS. BOOK.
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February 28, 2019It's come to my attention that some #ownvoices reviewers - one Albanian, one Muslim - have noted some considerably problematic aspects to this book's handling of the Kosovo war. Read these reviews, though be aware that both do include full spoilers. In the meantime, I'm removing my initial star rating and review. In light of the aforementioned reviews and some allegations of bad author behavior on Jackson's part, I'm no longer supporting this book in its current form. If it gets pulled, revised, and published later - and more sensitively - I'll read and review it again then.
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