Book 24: Half of a Yellow Sun

This book provides a well-written and fairly compelling fictional account of five characters living in Biafra immediately before and during its brief struggle for independence from Nigeria in the late 1960s. Perhaps it is true that all wars share a good deal in common - innocent people get killed, women are raped, children go hungry, officers become disallusioned and/or corrupt. However, by the end of this book, it felt a little as if each of the required scenes for a war story had been checked off a list. Still, the book kept my interest, I learned a little bit about a part of the world I know nothing about, and found many of the characters to be a satisfying blend of seeming contradictions.