The ripe age of 13

Cultural and societal differences are easily forgotten even when the countries are simply an ocean apart. A Long Way Gone is the kind of story that makes you thankful for being that American kid, born in the 80s, and barely aware of any sort of civil conflicts abroad. Then it trips you, and as you fall you think to yourself, damn it I’m spoiled and still bitching. You cock your head and think for a minute–but then you’ll continue reading because its one of those… These memoirs take you through emotional highs and lows. For some its a reminder, for most its a struggle to feel or understand what it is to be a child forced to survive under the most grim circumstance.