This is an extremely well-crafted tale. The writing is seamless. The author seems to have a sixth sense for just how much time to spend on a topic to balance character development with forward plot movement. I don’t usually do “literary” because it’s been my experience that it’s none of those things. They’re the books that you’re forced to read in school and if it weren’t for the critics telling you what was worthwhile about them, you might well overlook the diamond in the rough. Often those literary books have something to recommend them, if you’re willing to put in the hard work. Amie, by welcomed contrast, was a book that deserves to be called literary and in a good way—meaning it’s not a chore to read it.

The story is hard to label, but once again in a good way. It qualifies as travel literature because we leave England early on for exotic—unheard of—locales in Africa, where life couldn’t be any more different if it was happening on another planet. Taking in these new surroundings through all the senses, thanks to the craftsmanship of the author’s writing, the smells, the tastes, the tactile feeling of the heat and the flies against the skin, makes the exotic locale all the more viscerally felt.

But this is also bare-bones drama that knocks you on your ass. The heroine faces a firing squad in the prologue! We have a flash-forward that alerts the reader to the danger and the ordeal she’s heading into long before she does. It makes our time with her that much more bittersweet. As we get to know her through the first half of the book, as danger increasingly rears its ugly face again and again all around her, the thought of anything happening to her is like something happening to family; it’s just unthinkable. Once her trials begin in Africa, in earnest, around the middle of the book, after the rollercoaster fun ride adventure of exploring an exotic land comes to a head, her every moment is as painful as it is breathtaking to experience.

This world we live in is an often ugly and dangerous place. And those of us privileged to live in a first world country too easily forget that. The story then has redeeming qualities beyond being just a great read; it’s the kind of book you read and then go out and change the world. It’s why people become activists, coming up against this kind of pain and suffering, and this kind of injustice when they find it in the world. Sadly, nightly news numbs us by comparison at a time in history when we all need to be fighting for something and for someone. For this reason, this is the kind of book they need to teach in high school, college, and hand out at community centers.

In any less capable hands, I’m fairly convinced I would have put this book down. It’s dangerous writing, and that’s why few authors attempt it. If your subject matter terrifies people, you still have to hold on to them, make sure they resist the urge to put the book down. The author deserves five stars, thus, not just for writing a memorable tale, but for picking a story to write that few people can write, fewer can read, but that we’d all like to say we did.

I’m pleased to see she’s penned a sequel. I’ll be jumping into it next.