From Publishers Weekly
Williams's account of her Iraq service tries very hard to be a fresh and wised-up postfeminist take: Private Benjamin by way of G.I. Jane. Showy rough language peppers every paragraph, and Williams's obsessive self-concern, expressed in a lot of one-sentence paragraphs beginning with "I," verges on the narcissistic. The surprise is the degree to which the account succeeds and even echoes military memoirists from Julius Caesar to Ernie Pyle. The fear, bad weather, intermittent supplies, inedible meals (especially for the vegetarian author) and crushing boredom of life in the field are all here. Williams's particular strength is in putting an observant, distaff spin on the bantering and brutality of barracks life, where kids from the Survivor generation must come to terms with a grim and confusing reality over which they have little control. The differences are less in the sexual dynamics (which mostly are an extension of office politics) than the contradictions of the conflict in which the troops are engaged, which Williams embodies more than illuminates. She learns Arabic; there's a Palestinian boyfriend and a short, failed marriage during her state-side training. While an ex-punk, Chomsky-reading liberal, Williams questions the day-to-day conduct of the war without ever really engaging with its underlying rationale. Such nuance, though, might be too much to ask.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Booklist
Whip smart, sassy, with a mouth as foul as a sailor's, 28-year-old Sergeant Kayla Williams, who has served as an Arabic interpreter in the U.S. Army since late spring 2000, tells what it's like to be a female soldier in Iraq. The best description might be "contradictory." Williams shares the humiliation she feels before her male army brethren, while admitting she enjoys the perks of being female in the military. She's ferociously loyal to her country and her unit but blisteringly critical of military ineptitude by those above and around her. She conveys stretches of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by the horrific realities of war. And she's only too aware of the complicated requirements of occupation: "We're here to help you!" she writes. "Oh, and shoot you--if we feel it's necessary." There are gaps in the story--for example, Williams doesn't entirely explain why she enlisted--but that's only one reason why this highly readable account will leave readers wanting more. Stay tuned, as Williams is on call--Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR)--until 2008. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
