PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewJust as women are so often written out of war, so it seems are the female correspondents. Mackrell corrects this omission admirably with stories of six of the best ... It’s not just foreign correspondents like me who owe these amazing women a debt. Mackrell has done us all a great service by assembling their own fascinating stories. At first I wished she had included more of their work, but perhaps they are better served by leaving us wanting to go off and read firsthand how women see war.
Elliot Ackerman
RaveThe TimesI couldn’t quite make this book out. Is it a profound meditation on the nature of war? An important insight into the disastrous interventions and failed revolutions that have followed the destruction of the Twin Towers? In a way it is both these things and neither ... This is a very male book, as if women have no part in war; the only female mentioned is the long-suffering Swiss fiancée of the depressed Syrian. Yet it is so readable I forewent sleep and devoured it in one plane journey ... Ackerman is a master of dagger-sharp prose and memorable detail.
Åsne Seierstad, Trans. by Seán Kinsella
RaveThe TimesHauntingly written, this book is both a masterpiece and a masterclass in investigative journalism — Seierstad helpfully even gives notes on the process at the end ... Most of all, this is a portrayal of the effect of the girls’ departure on their family: their eldest brother, Ismael, abandons religion, while their mother returns to her native Somalia, taking her two youngest with her ... The main protagonist is really [the girls\' father] Sadiq and his almost Shakespearean descent into despair.
