Sadly my copy of this is corrupted and I can’t read to review , apologies, I will be buying a copy instead

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Let's Go Swimming on Doomsday is a beautifully written YA story that will stick with readers long after reader. The story is about a sixteen year old Somali refugee who in exchange for his and his family's freedom from the Americans, agrees to infiltrate a terrorist group. The plot is told in dual timelines. The subject matter is heavy, but so important. Highly recommended!!

Lets Go Swimming on Doomsday is one of those stories that once you read it, the characters never leave you.

Plot summary:
Abdi has been kidnapped by the Americans 3 years after his older brother joined the Somali militia group. In order to get freedom, he has reluctantly agreed to go undercover to save his brother.
After months in their ranks Abdi escapes but is haunted by what he has witnessed, and after a petty theft starts to face the events of his past he is so desperate to forget.

Review:
Plot and World Building – This was a beautifully imagined and had me engrossed from the first page. The intricate details made this story what it is and honestly it can be a brutal and eye opening read. The story kept me alert and guessing.

Overall pacing of the story was really quite varied and it worked well for the plot.

Characters and Development- Abdi is a fantastic lead character for such a story and it genuinely left me close to tears in a few moments. The development and themes of familial loyalty from Abdi truly hit home for me and it was a magnificent development.
There are a lot of intermittent characters outside Abdi, including his brother, and they are all intricately developed and utilised to progress the story.


Final Thoughts:
An exquisite, brutal novel that genuinely needs more people to read it- especially with everything currently going on in the world.

A hard hitting novel from the outset, a young refugee boy of 12 of so is trying to find his brother, To do so he has to go undercover for a militia group where his brother has been forcibly enrolled. The trials and stresses that the boys have to face are unthinkable, at an age where in this country you'd be starting secondary school, instead you have to think about terrorists and militia groups and how to save your own life. Brutal and eye opening

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this before publication. A harrowing story, but one that should not be ignored.
Our main focus is Abdi, a sixteen year old Somali boy, who - in order to protect his family - was asked by the Americans to infiltrate the jihadi terrorist group Al Shabaab. He vividly recalls the day that Al Shabaab boys came to his town and took his brother. Abdi was thirteen.
Our story is split between the now - when Abdi is being cared for by Sam, a worker for the UN - and then - the process that lead to Abdi being recruited by the group and the activities he was forced to take part in.
There’s no getting away from the fact that the subject matter is tough reading. The indoctrination of children to such groups, and the callous disregard for human life shown by such leaders, is graphically conveyed to us. However, making it clear that Abdi did not participate willingly, and that he is now in fear for his life, meant the book did not seem to glamorise such actions at all.
The details given about how the group operated were fascinating. What struck me, however, was the very real focus on the emotional impact on Abdi and others like him of such groups. There was an emotional honesty to this that is hard to ignore, and I cannot wait to see how it goes down with teen readers.

Let's go swimming on Doomsday is a brutally honest look at the effects of the Somalian civil war through the life experiences of one family and in particular Abdi. The consequences of his older brother Khalid's decision to join the terrorist militia results in Abdi and the rest of his family being targeted by the American CIA and coerced into aiding. The manipulation and brutality exposed by Anderson is striking, focussing the lens on both the Al Shaabab insurgents and the CIA. The powerlessness of Abdi to actively change his life and the fate of his family is stark and resonates with the cycle of intimidation that forces many into acts of terrorism. Anderson cleverly weaves the narrative between the past and present of Abdi's journey creating an urgency as both strands end in a catastrophic conclusion. All the while we watch Abdi grow both in maturity - physically and emotionally - as he realises that nothing is ever as black and white as it seems. A timely reminder of the battles that are still raging in the world that are increasingly overlooked and marginalised. There is action, there is love and there is ultimately hope.

Let's Go Swimming on Doomsday is a powerful, unflinching novel in which a teenager is forced to enter a world of violence and terror to save the lives of his family. Abdiweli ”Adbi” Mohamed, a Somali living in Kenya, was just 12 years old when his 16-year-old brother Dahir Mohamad was forcibly recruited into the ranks of the violent Somali militia group and recognised terrorist organisation Al Shabaab in Mogadishu. Three years later, Abdi and his family are abducted and imprisoned by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), an active, regional peacekeeping mission operated by the African Union with the approval of the United Nations Security Council. It is a collaborative effort between U.S. forces and the Somali army in which the U.S. soldiers train Somali troops. For days Abdi’s family are mercilessly beaten, watched by two guards with AK-47s and tortured before Abdi is brought before an American government official called Mr Jones. He shows Abdi a picture of a young man and asks if he recognises him; he doesn't at first because he believes his brother to be dead. Like so many other child soldiers, they assumed Dahir had expired some time ago. But it was him and he had apparently risen through the ranks to become a commander and the protégé to General Idris, aka the Butcher making Abdi useful to those hunting the group's leaders. He is offered a deal: freedom for him and his family in exchange for him infiltrating the jihadi group; Abdi agrees to be embedded as a spy within the militia's ranks and to send dispatches on their plans to the Americans. Due to Dahir being his brother, the group trust Abdi pretty much immediately but if his duplicity and betrayal are discovered he will be killed without hesitation.

For weeks, Abdi trains with them, witnessing atrocity after atrocity, becoming a monster himself, wondering if he's even pretending anymore. He only escapes after he is forced into a suicide bomber's vest, which still leaves him stumps where two of his fingers used to be and his brother near death. Eventually, he finds himself on the streets of Sangui City, Kenya, stealing what he can find to get by, sleeping nights in empty alleyways, wondering what's become of the family that was stolen from him. A United Nations employee, Sam gets him a place at a refugees girls’ boarding school and allows him to sleep in her spare room. But everything changes when Abdi's picked up for petty theft, which sets into motion a chain reaction that forces him to reckon with a past he's been trying desperately to forget. Will love (of his family) triumph over hate (and fear)? This is a scintillating, hard-hitting and ambitious thriller authentically depicting the lives of children living through atrocities. Anderson breathes dramatic urgency into the intense story and infuses the narrative with raw emotion, giving each character a distinct voice and alternating chapters take Abdi from Somalia to Kenya telling the story of then (Dahir’s kidnap) and now (Abdi’s life once he's departed the group). You can feel Abdi's horror and numbness, helpless despair at things he witnessed and perpetrated. Overall, this is an engaging, fast-paced, violent narrative, in which abhorrence of extreme Islamist ideology and violence of any kind, as well as loyalty to family and friends, win the day, and an intriguing examination of ways familial bonds and guilt can lead anyone to make desperate choices. Highly recommended.

DNF 50% No rating.

I had been so excited to read this. The setting and plot sounds fascinating and is something I have never read before. I believe this to be a real life human tragedy that deserves attention and exposure, so I had very high expectations.

I was looking forward to a deep, hard-hitting, soul crushing story to bring me to tears with raw emotion - both anger and sadness. It may be because this book has been written for a YA audience but I just didn't feel the emotional depth and connection I was so badly hoping for.

This isn't a bad book, it just unfortunately wasn't for me.

Thank you so much to Oneworld Publications, the author and NetGalley for granting me access to a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Shivers ran down my spine. My chest tightened. My heart leaped in my throat. I got nauseated. This story about a Somali teen soldier hurt tremendously.

Next week, one of my sons turns sixteen, and thinking about what he could go through if he were living in a different country, having a different life made me sick. Maybe that’s why this book affected me so much. Because it’s about a sixteen-year-old Somali boy, Abdi, kidnapped by Americans to infiltrate into Al Shabaab, ‘the Boys’, a Somali terrorist organization. The same organization that kidnapped Abdi’s brother Dahir three years ago to become a terrorist. Abdi is put in an impossible position. Because what will happen with his family if he doesn’t cooperate? And is his brother really part of Al Sahaab’s inner circle?

‘Saying no means leaving my family to this man to do whatever he wants to them. I feel the cuts and bruises all over my body. The thought of the same thing happening to my mother, my little sisters, and brother, my grandmother nearly makes me vomit.’

The book is written in now and then chapters. Now in Kenia, then in Somalia. The then in Somalia was devastating and harsh. In the now, I could feel the trauma Abdi suffered from and the guilt he had. Abdi is brave and smart, and he had to do terrible things. Really terrible things. One time I kept screaming: NO, NO, NO!

‘Stay away from the men with the guns. Soldiers, warlords, pirates, all of them. It might sound like a good idea to blow them out of the water, but that way of thinking is what’s had us all fighting each other for thirty years.’

Abdi’s dad always told him and Dahir to avoid men with guns. And he did until he was kidnapped. Then he became an infiltrated teen soldier, and although he still knew that Al Shabaab did so many bad things, all of that started to blur.

‘I tell myself I won’t end up brainwashed ... The only time I don’t feel totally confused, anxious, or exhausted is when we swim. In the water, for a little while, nothing bad can touch me.’

I loved the writing. It’s enthralling and sometimes even poetic. Although a white author wrote this story, I think it’s an important story to tell. The author did her research thoroughly, and I liked the author’s note where she explained why she wrote this book and that she, as a white author is prejudiced. I didn’t feel the prejudices much, though, throughout the book.

There were some tiny things that I liked less. Why using a different POV in the third person? I only understood the last one. And I had some doubts about the final chapters, to be honest. But overall, this story gripped me from the start until the end.