Cover Image: Colombiano

Colombiano

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Set in post Pablo Escobar Colombia, a country divided by conflict where the left-wing FARC guerrillas are responsible for the kidnapping, murder and extorting illegal taxes from landowners and businesses. This novel revolves around the character of Pedro a fifteen-year-old boy who is forced to witnesses his father’s murder by a group of FARC guerrillas. After his father’s murder Pedro and his mother are banned from returning to their family farm, and Pedro has to grow up fast.
Pedro and his best friend Palillo decide to join the right-wing paramilitary organisation ARC a right wing group of death squads funded by wealthy landowners and business whose mission is to destroy the FARC strongholds across the country. Pedro hopes that by joining ARC he will be able to track down and exact revenge on the men responsible for his father’s death.

This is an interesting and fast paced read. Although I did think at times that Pedro was luckier than a cat with nine lives with all the conflicts he manages to escape from. However the novel is based on a number of different interview’s the Australian writer Rusty Young conducted with child soldiers from both sides of the conflict while he was working as a counter-terrorism specialist for the US government in Colombia. Pedro’s story is combination of these individual stories combined into one novel. If you have an interest in World Politics and South America this is definitely worth a read.

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First of all, I thank Havelock & Baker publishing house for providing me with a review copy.

The author has taken up a unique subject and the story is based on personal experience, it’s about the government and guerilla fight in the Amazon forests. It’s a story of Columbia.
The father of Pedro was killed by the guerrilla commandos in front of his eyes. His crime was to supply material to the government. What material did he supply?

The answer was water! His father said it was against humanity if he denied water to someone thirsty.

“It was cold when first light appeared on the Horizon. My watch alarm sounded. it was Thursday 5:45 a.m. that day's exam was in history. I was still dressed for school in my blood-soaked uniform. I hadn't slept for 24 hours, but I didn't feel tired. the adrenaline was still pumping. The Shock was still rattling. And the sadness was still burning, small and blue and quiet like a gas pilot light that could burst into angry flame at the slightest of a dial.”


Llorona was a small but prosperous town perfectly set in a river valley in a Colombian province. Pedro joined the Paramilitary to take revenge on the killers of his father. He and his friend joined the base and face rigorous training. There were one hundred and four recruits- ninety-nine boys and five girls. They came from all over Columbia.

They restricted themselves to shrugs and mumbles.

I found the book quite lengthy and this is a drawback, but the story and message that this lengthy book wants to tell to the world is something that can hegemonize this drawback. It is written in simple and lucid prose, so moving fast won't be an issue, it's quite absorbing at places and there are some shocking disclosures. There is some fact and there is some fiction, characters are also interesting. There is some teenage love and friendship and also some very violent bloody scenes, the logic behind many sequences have been maintained.

This is an action-packed revenge thriller. I would recommend this book for witnessing a unique tale, inspired by real life. Author Rusty Young worked secretly for the US govt in Colombia for four years and was shocked to know the stories of the child -soldiers he encountered there, so through this book he has tried to let their voices heard, with his absorbing storytelling!

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I really enjoy books that blend fact and fiction, but I will admit that Colombiano was a stretch outside of my comfort zone. I don't know much about post-Escobar Colombia but I still found this book to be riveting and exciting.

Pedro's life is torn apart when Guerrilla soldiers kill his father and he and his mother are banished from their farm. Swearing vengeance against the men responsible for the death of his father, Pedro and his best friend Palillo join a renegade paramilitary group and are trained in Guerrilla warfare. As he is sucked into a world of unspeakable terror and violence amid Colombia’s civil war, Pedro must now decide how far he is willing to go for revenge.

This was a really gripping tale and I am so glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone and read it.

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Wow. I’m not even sure where to begin. This was definitely the most intense book I read all year. Following Pedro on his journey to not only becoming a man but avenging his family was both heartbreaking and eye opening.

Overall I thought the book did a really good job at not downplaying any of the atrocity that the paramilitaries (both sides) commit. It’s one thing to hear about what is happening in other parts of the world but Mr. Young lays it all out right there for the reader to see. While this is a blend of different stories from many different children soldiers it read like a biography. I appreciate the effort of Mr. Young to make this as real as possible to the reader since it is what is happening to real people.

I will say that the length of the book was maybe a bit too long. I was not deterred by the length but I felt that some parts dragged a bit and others went by too quickly.

I think this will stay with me for a while as I continue to process everything but I am very glad I read it. If you are looking for an eye opening novel into the world of paramilitary and drug wars this is it.

*Thank you to Lily Green and Havelock & Baker Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

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Pedro Gutierrez just wants to fish, play pool and be with his girlfriend Camilla while living his best life as a 15 year old in Colombia. All of that changes when he watches his father die in front of him by Guerrilla soldiers and he and his mother are subsequently banished from their farm. Not wanting to let these men get away with what they did, Pedro joins an illegal Paramilitary group with his best friend Palillo where he is trained to fight and kill any sign of weakness.

This is based on a true story and let me tell you it is dark and gruesome throughout. It is also very long, coming in at 22 hours on the audiobook, and I think that is what kept it from being 5 stars for me. It is a fantastic story, very well told, and absolutely incredible what Pedro was able to accomplish, albeit most of it illegal and while still basically a child. At his core he is a good person, and somehow that doesn't get him killed when so many times it easily should have. I really enjoyed listening to this, as stories such as these always fascinate me, and I'm glad that it was able to be told.

Thank you to NetGalley and Havelock & Baker Publishing for the digital copy to review.

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Wow. This is an extremely powerful read - I really really enjoyed it. It took me awhile to get through, only because it has such deep and emotional themes throughout. The author has been through deeply traumatic moments in his life: the death of his father, being a child guerrilla, and more.

It was extremely well written & made me think deeper than I had in recent books. Such a good book if you like learning about different countries, cultures, adventures, tragedies, and more.

Thank you for writing this book, Rusty!

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I enjoyed this book and the look at life of the paramilitary group in Columbia. Pedro was a well developed main character and you feel his anger, sadness and dedication as he live through death, trauma, friendship and selfishness.

That said, this book needs an editor. It is about 200 pages too long and just kept going. I had to pull off it multiple times for other books but ultimately the plot line brought me back, so I’m giving it four stars.

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Exciting, exhilarating, and a must-read.

Colombiano has Rusty working secretly for the US government. 4 years have passed and he has seen some shocking stories.

Very well written with well-crafted characters make this one of my favorite this year.

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I didn't really enjoy the whole book .
It was different from the books I usually read and found it kinda boring .
I liked the writing style , it was good, However , I wouldn't be checking out any of their other books.

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I enjoyed the first quarter of this book very much. I really cared about Pedro and wanted to know how he fared further down the line as his experiences early in the book were absolutely terrible.

When the Guerillas of Columbia kill his father in front of him, you just know that he is absolutely focused on revenge and joins an illegal paramilitary army in order to help him with his mission. The training is incredibly hard and, at times, cruel but it is what he has signed up for and continues on his crusade for payback.

Once Pedro had finished his initial training and the story continued I found myself losing interest so I did put the book to one side for a while and went back to it but to I still couldn’t carry on so unfortunately I didn’t finish.

Thanks to Havelock & Baker Publishing and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

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bookshelves: challenging-literature, historical-fiction, war, kindle, netgalley, we-need-diverse-books, buddy-read, coming-of-age
Recommended to Dustin by: Havelock & Baker Publishing


At its core, Columbiano was a story of revenge, and how one young man navigated the world-- in many ways a brand-new world-- without the unyielding love and protection of his father.



I'd never heard of the book or its Australian journalist turned author, Rusty Young, so naturally, when I saw the PM from Havelock & Baker Publishing, in my Goodreads inbox in 2019, I was instantly curious. Finding out it was available through NetGalley (a site that, I soon realized, I'd been a member of since 2015, but had not used,) I was ecstatic for the opportunity. But, you know how that goes: life got busy, I found other books vying for my attention, and eventually I forgot about Columbiano until February, 2021. And though it took me much longer to get to, and basically defeated the purpose of NetGalley, I'm incredibly thankful that things worked out as they did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had the buddy reading experience that this turned out being.

’Why do you want to tell your story?’

‘For the same reason I’m working here: to help. People need to understand the truth in order to heal their scars.’ He touched his cheek. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones. I should be dead—the Guerrila almost killed me several times—and I went down a dark path myself.’


They say having a good companion to bounce ideas off of can make almost any book something to remember, something to ameliorate that experience. Well, if that's true, then reading an exceptional book together should amplify those feelings even more. That was certainly the case when Carrie Chi Lough and I read Colombiano together. From the author's impressive prologue, wherein he adequately described the circumstances behind meeting the real-life "Pedro Juan Gutierrez Gonzalez" (an alias, despite his admission that it’s mostly fiction,) to the novel's adrenaline-laced middle, and coupled with its less than stellar resolution, Carrie and I discussed the ins and outs of this story. There wasn't much left unsaid, and believe me, there was a LOT to talk about. Likewise, there wasn't much cause for disagreement.


But what would that world look like, and how would he navigate his newfound independence while simultaneously learning how to grieve? And with that sense of freedom comes great responsibility--- an obligation that no fifteen year old should ever have to bear.


Earnestly, Young’s novel was much more than either of us expected. The prose was deceptively simplistic, for one. Easy to read prose ordinarily isn’t a characteristic that I go for, mostly because it doesn’t really challenge me on an intellectual level, and I love a good challenge in general. Yet somehow, probably due to Pedro’s black-and-white mentality (in the early stages, at least,) Young made it work. I think the author intimately knew the strengths and flaws of his protagonist very well, and he used them to his advantage.

As a whole, Columbiano was quite intricate. It was ambitious and epic in length (spanning approximately eight hundred pages,) storytelling achievement, character development, historical significance and theme The psychological and emotional elements, though, were perhaps areas where Young excelled best. Especially the emotions. There was nothing linear or flat about them. I felt everything: love, loss, suffering, sadness, victory, deflation and so much more. The author raised the bar as far as the emotional gambit went, and everything felt like a natural progression. I never doubted or questioned the authenticity of those feelings, nor the plot itself. Nothing was contrived…until it was.

It really is a toss-up between what Carrie and I discussed-- and marveled over—the most: its masterful revenge plot, complete with its ups and downs, or the full emotional display. One subject we never really broached, but should be acknowledged, was the depth of research that Rusty Young conducted. It became obvious from the beginning that the story came from a place of meticulous observations and learning. Nearly every facet felt very real and effortless, as though he lived it personally.


I did my best to feign comprehension, but really, I didn’t know what either side was fighting for. To me, the war was like the front-page headline of El Tiempo, the big-city newspaper that Papa read: although bold and important, its underlying events reached me from a great distance and only involved people I didn’t know. It wasn’t until my late childhood that I realized the war was all around me, and always had been.


The worldbuilding was impressive. I could easily visualize the structures of downtown Llorona, nearby Garbanzos, and “further south,” home to the “Peruvian Amazon and further east, the mountains and jungles of Venezuela and Brazil.” The author made the commonly misunderstood nature of narcotics trafficking, poverty, communism, and the strict structure of a terrorist regime known as the Autodefensas (also called the AUC or The United Self-Defenses of Columbia,) more common and easily understood, and in such a way that I never felt spoken down to. It didn’t come across as dumbing down, either. All of it fascinated me. In fact, reading about the country and especially the Autodefensas piqued my interest in learning even more about them.



As his military training persisted, would his everyday decisions and mentality follow suit? What would his ideas of justice and vengeance look like? Would they be one and the same, or distinctly different? How would those experiences shape him into the man he became? What did his worldview resemble?



Now, given that I’ve done nothing but praise Columbiano, you’d think it would be a five star read, an all-time favorite book, or at the very least, a favorite read of 2021. Indeed, it should have been. It could have been. In fact, up until the last twenty or so pages (94%) I would’ve called it exceptional, a beautiful work of art. To be blunt, it was damn near flawless.

Until it wasn’t. Until he took everything he’d painstakingly worked at and rendered the emotions numb. Until it went drastically from relatable and authentic to weak, unrelatable, and unoriginal. Pedro’s character arc was, at one point, one of the best I’d read in ages. Throughout his journey, he made great strides of personal growth and maturity, so it honestly saddens and baffles me why the author ended it the way he did. Instead of the outcome we got, his journey could’ve come full circle if he’d taken the time and energy to fully process the path he’d taken, to feel the impact of his actions, and live accordingly. Alas, what we got was cheap, unsatisfying, predictable and frankly, UNEARNED. Almost like the bulk of his experiences meant nothing to him. There were no consequences for the terrible things he did, and there should have been. Otherwise, how do you grow? How do you move forward? How can you made the past matter?

I LOATHE happily-ever-after endings, which is exactly what we got.

In hindsight, I want to give it the highest recommendation, to say it’s a book every serious bibliophile should own and read. If only because it sheds light on the grim realities of Columbia, cocaine trafficking, and child soldiers. I don’t say that lightly, either, due to subject matter and the clear grimdark elements.

I cannot express how much I LOVED this book, nor how certain I felt it would be one of the very best books I’ve ever read. I suppose that’s why it hurts so much. I can’t think of a single novel that has upset and disappointed me as severely as Columbiano. I don’t think I’ve ever genuinely HATED a book ending.

For those reasons, I can’t rate it higher than 3.5 stars.


We had several fishing spots along the river—some om the outer bends where fast-moving currents brought nutrients that attracted fish, others in calmer stretches behind rock formations or mossy logs. Papa’s fishing rod was a family heirloom. It had a varnished cedar reel seat, a cork grip and a shaft made of finely cut cane strips into which three sets of initials were burned: Papa’s, his father’s, and his grandfather’s. My own initials would be added on my sixteenth birthday. Until then, I’d have to content myself with a plastic hand reel…

The sun sat high in the sky, its rays sparkling off the water. Papa leaned back with his elbow resting on the dinghy’s side, steeped in private thoughts. From time to time, the sun ducked behind one of the high clouds and the resulting shadow sent a shiver up my spine and made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

Two hours passed like that, and I’d almost convinced myself that I’d been wrong about Papa’s mood when he finally spoke.



*Thank you again to the publisher, Havelock & Baker and to NetGalley, for the generous approval.

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3 "relentless, vivid, overly lengthy, Hollywoodesque" stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Havelock & Baker publishing. This edition was released in February 2020 but was originally released in Australia in 2017.

I feel so mixed about this novel. I have spent almost the entire winter reading this book (off and on).

I appreciated some of this book and was absolutely exasperated with important features.

What I appreciated:


1. the vivid telling of the story
2. logical and carefully laid out sequencing of events
3. educative aspects of the political scene in Colombia
4. detailed description of the training of child and adolescent soldiers
5. a portion of the proceeds of the book goes to rehabilitation of child/adolescent soldiers

What bothered me ( a lot)

1. the flimsy depiction of psychological sequelae of trauma
2. the lack of a coherent psychology of individual characters (author does much better at the politics, culture and sociology)
3. the spoonfeeding of moralism and "lessons to be learned"
4. the length of this book ....could have been cut in half easily

I am not sure if I benefited from reading this book or not. I was at times very entertained and informed but perhaps this could have been better done in a lengthy Vanity Fair article.

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This was my first invite into NetGalley and what a wonderful world it opened up. Unfortunately it took me over a year to get to this book, manly because I put it off because this wasn’t my “usual” book pick...sad on my part! This is a beautiful, violent, raw, honest book about an African young boy-whom I adored, even in all his flaws-being forced to grow up amongst gangs, like the Black Guerrilla. After his father is brutally killed in front of him, he has to make the only choice he thinks he can, join another gang and use it to seek vengeance on the killers. But joining this gang makes him become a killer, and then he has to deal with knowing that he might not be any better then the ones he is fighting against. This is such a great, heartfelt coming of age story, filled with love, sadness, regret, and the choices we make to survive...and forgive.

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Colombiano is a huge saga which is written in a very easy reading style, which will swallow you immediately into the story. Novel starts with an interesting prologue which gives some info about the author himself and it’s worth to read. We learn about Petro Gutiérrez whose father is executed in front of his eyes by Guerilla. Mario Gutierrez’s death is only one of the many unnecessary deaths in Colombia which is in war between Guerilla and Autodefensas, backed up by government.

I liked the book very much and enjoyed it, even though this is not the usual genre I would pick by myself. I liked the fact that this is a combination of the reality and fiction and how the life in Colombia is described to the detail, so we can have an idea how it was/maybe still is life there. That being born there you have to choose your side either Guerilla or the other army, that you have to become a soldier even from early childhood or just suffer.
Many of the characters in the book are very authentic and we are dragged into their lives by short stories entwined around the Pedro’s desperate desire for revenge.

I liked Pedro as a main character, although I often found him weak and very naïve, which was most probably due to his age as well. Cause I somehow had a hunch, why his father was killed since the beginning of the story and the soldiers that he admires are not such a great heroes who wants the best for their country. The novel was packed with the themes of loss, revenge, cruelty, betrayal and corruption, it kept my attention from start to finish.

Overall I found the ending of the book too much of „fairytale“ and there was a bit too much „heroism“ from Pedro for my taste, acting like he is a man, which he wasn’t as he was still a teenager. Despite that I will miss this book as I would miss parting with a great friend.
I would recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction and those who like action novels.
Many thanks to Havelock & Baker Publishing for this ebook I was provided as it was indeed a great read.

Plot:

Pedro's story begins at age 15, when his father was killed before his eyes, and he and his mother are driven from their farm. Pedro joins the Autodafensas in the first place because he wants revenge for his father's death, but also because he wants to survive. The autodafensas give him the security of a group he belongs to (although he needs to go through a lot before he earns their protection), and they pay him, so that he can buy necessities for himself and send money to his mother.

The book describes the two years Pedro and his friends are with the Autodafensas. During this time, from a child, Pedro becomes a man who has many responsibilities, kills when he is in danger or encounters an enemy, and in the mean time tries to be loyal to his friends.
And this is Columbia...war, drugs, corrupt politics, Guerrilla, Autodafensas, people being robbed, killed, disappearing.

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Rusty Young based this fictional novel on his experiences as a Program Director of the US government's Anti-Kidnapping Program in Colombia. He was part of a team that trained local police, military and SWAT teams in kidnapping response and hostage rescue. (At the time, Colombia had an average of eight kidnappings a day.)

In the foreword he explains his desire to bring forward the stories of the people he has met, but not in a way that would endanger them. And so he wrote a fictional novel about a young boy who finds himself forced to chose a side in a war he had no interest in.

This is a difficult read due to the subject matter, but is also on a topic that the author clearly has a deep insight to, which makes it all the more harrowing.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

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I would like to thank Haverlock & Baker Publishing, and the author - Rusty Young, for the opportunity to review this title

I have given the book a rating of 3 stars. I was very excited and couldn't wait to start reading, but unfortunately.... it's not my style of genre.

I felt the book focused too much on describing character backstories and less time focusing on keeping the story interesting for the reader.

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This was a much more in depth read than I anticipated, having not really read the blurb, I thought it was going to be more like a YA book with a lot of action and guns.

It was so much more.

It was the carefully detailed account of a young boy as he becomes a man, amidst the unimaginable trials and difficulties presented to him by corruption, drugs warfare and murder, told over the span of several years. He grows both physically as a man, and emotionally as a person, makes friends and navigates the difficulties of a multitude of agendas held by people who could genuinely kill him.

It was also the story of his friends and relationships with them, his family and where they fit into the complex puzzle, and the way the political situation amplified the normal elements of mid to late teenaged years.

It was the sort of book I wanted to come back to at every opportunity, but that I had to devote time where I was not distracted so I could really absorb all aspects of the story.

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I wouldn't know where to begin about this book. It gripped me from the first moment until the end. Although I am not familiar with Colombia's history, I'm in no doubt that the atrocities mentioned in the book took place - and maybe even worse. Just like in the Marching Powder, Young's writing style kept me on my edge the whole time and I truly struggled to drop the book the whole time I was reading it. The ending was a big tease but fitted the book perfectly. I honestly cannot fault this book in any way.

At times I sympathised with characters and others, I wanted to slap sense into them. The fact that there were no heroes and no faultless characters in this book made it all the more believable. Without giving anything away, I feel that this book can almost be read as a lesson to the kind of corruption and manipulation that happens everyday without us even noticing. I truly admire the bravery of Young in bringing the child soldiers' stories to light with this novel.

One warning I need to give is of the horrors the child soldiers went through. They were depicted in very graphic detail, however I strongly suggest that this does not deter you as some awareness is necessary and vital for us to notice the atrocities that happens around our mollycoddled world.

I really hope Rusty Young will release a third book. I will be looking forward to reading it.

*Many thanks to Havelock & Baker Publishing for giving me this book through NetGalley for an honest review.*

*Review originally published on the 30th of August 2019 on Goodreads.com*

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I found this story of young Pedro, a 15 year old boy living in colombia who is forced to witness his dad's murder to be gritty and very violent. I think this was a tough book to read as it's based on a true story and Pedro is just a kid who takes on the role of a child soldier to hunt those who killed his dad. Graphic, violent, and tense are how I would describe Pedro's story. The writing was very good.

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As a rule, this is a genre I tend to avoid. Which is why I was genuinely surprised by its addictive effect.

I was able to greatly empathize with the main character, despite the many atrocities that he committed )all in the name of justice). So much so, that I cannot even remember a single instance where I wasn't earnestly rooting for him to succeed in all his "adventures".

For all that many people criticize the more... ugh... fictionalized (possibly romanticized?) aspects of the novel, I thing that for me it was those details that ultimately attracted me to it. Regardless of how unrealistic they may seem, sometimes you need a little bit of hope in order to be able to get up and move on.

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