Girl at War

A Novel

By: Sara Novic

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

For readers of The Tiger’s Wife and All the Light We Cannot See comes a powerful debut novel about a girl’s coming of age—and how her sense of family, friendship, love, and belonging is profoundly shaped by war.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE, BOOKLIST, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE • ALEX AWARD WINNER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST • LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION

Zagreb, 1991. Ana Jurić is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatia’s capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana’s idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Ana’s sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.

New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though she’s tried to move on from her past, she can’t escape her memories of war—secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her country’s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before.

Moving back and forth through time, Girl at War is an honest, generous, brilliantly written novel that illuminates how history shapes the individual. Sara Nović fearlessly shows the impact of war on one young girl—and its legacy on all of us. It’s a debut by a writer who has stared into recent history to find a story that continues to resonate today.

Praise for Girl at War

“Outstanding . . . Girl at War performs the miracle of making the stories of broken lives in a distant country feel as large and universal as myth.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)

“[An] old-fashioned page-turner that will demand all of the reader’s attention, happily given. A debut novel that astonishes.”—Vanity Fair

“Shattering . . . The book begins with what deserves to become one of contemporary literature’s more memorable opening lines. The sentences that follow are equally as lyrical as a folk lament and as taut as metal wire wrapped through an electrified fence.”—USA Today

A simple yet compelling story

I finished the book in two long session. when I finished the book I had to go back to the last three minutes because it ended so abruptly I was taken by surprise with its sudden end leaving some unanswered questions. That being said the book takes you in journey through our protagonist life, its ups and downs and the struggle to over come the past making you uncomfortable at time laughing at others and definitely crying. I recommend buying the book if you are into grounded story with open endings

Excellent book about the Balkans

The narrator makes all the men in the book sound Eastern European. Otherwise, it was an amazing heartfelt tale of the Croatian crisis, less known the Bosnian massacre.

Well thought through realistic and moving story

We are humans with the greatest and weakest in us. Biology plays a role, environment makes the difference. The circumstances outside of our control are hard to acknowledge as we want to believe that our will plays a more important role, than it actually does..

I found characters well developed, very realistic, events to be very probable, the cultures presented from multiple points of view, and learned quite a bit about myself and others. The torturous events were not extravagantly emphasized, but then they did not loose their power of hurt and understanding. The kindness of people was not elevated to sainthood, but also was not minimized. This book is a reminder that not everything depends on us, but then something does depend. It helped me to understand the impact of certain experiences.

I was impressed with author writing. The books reads easily, but the vocabulary is quite rich.

Brings home the Homeland War

Compelling characters. Compelling story. The author personalizes the War, the tragedies, the brutalities, the scars in a way that a history book cannot. Despite the subject matter, it is not downbeat nor depressing. The lead character, Ana, has hope and a future like Croatia itself. The book provides an insight to the Balkans (as well as to the Middle East today.) The narrator could not be better.

Story of war seen by a young girl.

great war story told by a young girl, who did not understand the purpose of this ethnic/ religious war.