What Is The What Book Review

Dave Eggers shows no mercy on the expression “roughing it” in his novel What is the What, as he takes the reader down to the western African country of Sudan, where young boy Achak Deng resides. A civil war involving a very intricate and tangled web of politics boils over and effectively creates a living hell in Sudan, forcing Achak to struggle for survival against the thousands of lethal situations that converge on him and those around him daily.

The main reason I couldn’t stop reading was because I just had to find out if Achak would manage to overcome all the intense and almost always deadly obstacles. His thoughts are so innocent, just focused on survival. He is the toughest person I’ve ever read about in a novel, and there are hundreds of candidates for that position. His struggle for survival will captivate you to the point where you can’t put down the book.

Political turmoil escalates until outsiders find more new layers than an onion, and twice the tears. A civil war ensues, and six year old Achak is forced out of his hometown of Marial Bai. Actually, he’s not forced out, for that is too kind a coloring. What really happens is that bloodthirsty, armed and Arabian, horsemen called the murahaleen assault his village. It was a massacre, as all buildings were burned, people were chopped, slashed, and shot. As the tumult continues, Achak separates from his family and hides in a nearby church. Afterwards, he ends up running away, and having to travel on foot through three different countries. Through it all, Achak never sheds a single tear, or stops for a second to mourn. His every part, his entire being, is focused on keeping afloat.

What is the What is so harrowing, the massacre in Achak’s home town only the beginning of a very long and threatening tale. There’s always some sort of new situation, development or obstacle that Achak comes out alive by the skin of his teeth. For instance, when Achak was in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, nearby villagers who had been harboring the resent and anger of their new neighbors finally lashed out. Achak and thousands of other Sudanese refugees are required to run back into Sudan, across an angry and torrential river, to escape the equally angry and lethal Ethiopians. The Ethiopians charge after them, locked and loaded, gunning at their backs. People were dying every half a second. The entire time crocodiles lied in wait the river, for the upcoming all-you-can-eat buffet. So this young boy, barely an adolescent, had to cross a furious river infested with crocodiles while hundreds of people shot at him. It that not enough? I forgot to mention, Achak didn’t know how to swim. Yet he still managed to survive. He described the river as, “-running in many colors that day, green and white, black and brown and red.”

Situations like that will keep you glued to the book. You will wait for the next twist, the next peril, and witness all the things Achak witnessed during his hellish childhood. Overall, the book is one of my favorites, but I am a very heavy reader, both in quantity of books and pages. I do not recommend this book to anybody younger than 13, as it contains many mature themes that other younger people wouldn’t be able to grasp. It also contains some spread out but steady mentioning of politics, along with a slightly above average vocabulary. It is also a reasonably long and heavy read, and I recommend it for heavy readers, as those with short attention spans will most likely not get the full experience.

What is the What is an action/adventure novel, but not in the average connotations of Live Free, Die Hard action with constant explosions and martial arts. It is one of the dozens of stories by Dave Eggars and declared the “Best Book of the Year” by Time Magazine. It is a very intellectual novel backed up by unique storyline. It will give you an extensive and eye-opening insight into being a refugee, and what it really means to “struggle to survive”, as in America the common implication for that phrase is not being able to pay mortgage, which will become a very pitiful example after you read the first few chapters of this book. I give it a nine out of ten, and recommend it to all teenagers who have an extensive vocabulary and are frequent readers.