Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday is a raw look at terrorism and its many victims. This is an emotionally challenging read because of the young age of the protagonist and the heart-breaking actions that enter his life–both as a result of an extremist group and the U.S. forces that are supposedly counteracting that group. The protagonist, Abdi, is put in a no-win situation, but he struggles valiantly to protect his family.
The format of the book is to switch between current events and past events. This approach can be confusing at times, but that is actually an effective literary technique in this case because the situation is anything but straightforward and simulates the chaotic nightmare that Abdi is living and his fractured emotional state.
Once the storylines are merged to the present, there is a high-adrenaline climax that is expertly executed and worthy of an action movie. If the reader can survive the emotional wringing of the early pages of the book, they will be rewarded with a hero with heart in a world that makes no sense. Recommended read for those young adults wanting to explore tough topics.
Review of an Advance Reading Copy
This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 3 religious exclamations; 23 mild obscenities; 1 religious profanity; 5 derogatory names; 43 scatological words; 12 anatomical terms; 8 F-word derivatives.
Violence/Gore: Verbal threats; family member shot, badly, mention of blood; teenage boy is abducted, beaten badly and tortured (electrical wires cut feet), some description; 2 page descriptive scene of shooting; talk of infiltrating militant camp; military discussions/plans; teenage boy is shown a picture of his mother and her face has been beaten; report of smashed cinema and owner drug off; gunshots heard; report of beating; legs switched as character walks; description of treating wounds from beating; threat to grab crotch; flashback, brief image of girl bloodied and broken; brother hits brother hard across the face; report of death by viper; recount of how soldiers took sister, killed brother, and took out 14 year old’s eye; many reference to past violence, conflicts, shooting of people (non-descriptive), reference to a CSI Miami episode where coroner is describing a body’s damage; extended fight scene with snipers, deaths, mention of blood; extended whipping scene, descriptive and upsetting; brother shot, mention of blood, descriptive and extended scene; teenage boy captured/punched and forced to enlist; explosion resulting in severe property damage and injury; struggle/fight with gun, fist, knife–injuries and possible death; multi-page extended scene in which terrorists bomb a public place killing many, taking hostages, and other acts of violence.
Sex/Nudity: Graffiti sexual references; implication (known but not explicitly stated) that pregnancy in young girls is from rape/soldiers; teen girl accuses teenage boy of wanting to jump someone’s bones; passing reference to porn; character talks in general terms of how she was forced to be a wife to a terrorist; daughter tries to save a father and shouts to terrorists “Rape me until I am a corpse”; girl is stripped naked for a beating, brief description; girl thinks general thought of how boys forced themselves upon her.
Mature Subject Matter:
Terrorism, death, rape, war, forced enlistment of boys, kidnapping, torture, death of family members, extremism, U.S. counter-terrorism efforts (ethics of methods).
Alcohol / Drug Use:
Characters smoke.
