Brotherless Night: 'Blazingly brilliant' CELESTE NG

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Those sentences not only are a pleasure to read but they powerfully move the story and convey precisely what the narrator thinks and feels. India’s peacekeeping force tried to disarm both sides; the Tigers attacked them with suicide bombers. As part of the Tamil minority, her family is expected to support the militant group the Tamil Tigers. Fleeing to survive, Sashi agrees to work as a medic at a field hospital for one of the fighting military factions. We follow her, her brothers and their friend K (her secret crush) as they all encounter Black July in Colombo - a pogrom of the Tamil people by the Sinhalese.

Life in an underground bunker: "When we ran to the bunkers we tried to remember to carry our torches so that we could check for snakes. Set during the early years of Sri Lanka's three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman's moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home. So begins our time with Sashi, who is older and living in the US now, but telling us her story as it started in 1981 in Jaffna, when she was a teenager and the Sri Lankan civil war was just beginning. Neither is there any sense in trying to find a final answer to the question: who started it- was it the Sinhalese or the Tamils. Many thanks to the author, Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the digital ARC of this exceptionally well-written novel.In this searing novel, a courageous young woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor as civil war devastates Sri Lanka. The problem I have with the five star scale on Goodreads--or at least the way I rate books on it--is there is no way to distinguish "excellent" from "everyone must drop everything and read this book now. The book is mostly set in the Tamil city of Jaffna and told in the first person by a woman named Sashikala (Sashi) Kulenthiren who is 15 when it starts and on track to attend medical school--which she eventually does. It is a loose history of the horrible impact of the civil war, and the toll it takes on countries, families, and in particular, one young lady with hopes and aspirations. When one of her brothers loses his life in an act of anti-Tamil violence and two of her brothers and a family friend join the “movement” Sashi finds herself making choices and being drawn into a life she had never imagined for herself- a medical student also working as a medic for those serving in the movement.

The answer depends entirely on how far back in events you want to go - A never ending and unrewarding past time. Also, Sashi wants to go to medical school and become a doctor and as war rages she has her fair share of hands on experience. There are no good guys in war, and it’s easy to condemn actions from the outside, but who knows what each of us would do to keep our families safe?Set during the early years of Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman’s moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home. At the same time though shrinking these stories to bite sized "we were pure and innocent bystanders and then the Nazis killed my husband and I feel sad but I have pluck" narratives diminishes the real story. As time progresses, she loses touch with her brothers, and events happen that are against her moral code. This novel makes heartbreakingly clear the horrific reality on the ground in Sri Lanka that those protestors (in Toronto and in major cities around the West) were trying to bring to the world’s attention.

I highly recommend reading it if you want to understand the horror of living in the middle of a long running war. I well remember downtown Toronto being brought to a virtual standstill for several days in early 2009 by hundreds of Tamil protesters who used their bodies to block major traffic arteries. I loved the way the author pulled you in and occasionally just turned to as if you were just sitting there with her.The focus on Sashi and her family gives readers a connection to the many who struggled and suffered. Revealing the depth of depravity man can do to fellow man, but weaving in the hope for a better tomorrow, this is not an easy book to read.