young adult book review: Life, After by Sarah Darer Littman
I confess: the cover made me want to read it. I adore this cover, but thankfully, I also adored this book. Life, After is a heart-wrenching and heartwarming tale of immigration, friendship, terrorism, young love, Judaism, Argentinian politics, depression and Asperger's syndrome. Sarah Darer Littman manages to deal with all of these themes beautifully and sometimes unexpectedly. Part of the joy for me of reading this book was having so little idea what it was about, so I promise not to give away too much. The narrator, Dani, is a young Jewish Argentinian girl. Her aunt, who is eight months pregnant, is killed on July 18, 1994 in the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires. The ensuing fallout of the terrorist attack moved her family (and most Argentinians) from middle class business owners to those in need of charity. Argentina was in crisis, and Littman does a wonderful job succinctly explaining ten years of politics to those who likely don't know any of the story....