Immigrated is an interesting read about a young Bosnian woman who arrived in the US as a young bride in the late 1990s. Much Of her memoir is about becoming accustomed to life in the US and adjustments she made. She references her former life in Bosnia, about surviving the war and now it impacted her and her family. I haven’t come across many memoirs from Bosnia so I read this one with great interest.

A great representation of how war impacts across generations and how a person comes to terms with trauma. I did find the structure a bit more complicated than it perhaps had to be in telling what is already an interesting story. The sense of confidence and hope which develops over the duration of the book is truly endearing and you can’t help but like the protagonist and hope that her future is a happy one.

Immigrated: A Memoir, is the story of a young girl trying to escape the tragedy of war torn Bosnia and conform to her new life in America. She quickly learns that adapting to a new culture presents challenges as well, and her marriage seems to be one based on questionable pretenses. At times the writing is broken and unsophisticated, but I wondered if this was intentional as the author learned to express herself more concisely in English. The author learns that education is the key to opening doors to a new future, and she appears to be happiest when she is taking classes at Harvard. The treatment she receives from her "husband" is difficult to reconcile with his desire to rescue her from war torn Bosnia, but she seems unfazed by his unpredictable behavior because she doesn't deem herself worthy of real love. She is thankful that he pays her tuition and ultimately, education provides her with the new beginning she so desperately needs. The author finds her voice more eloquently towards the end of the book, and again, I wondered if this was intentional as she is beginning to gain self confidence and hope for her future.

If you are interested in reading life stories about an immigrant's point of view, you will enjoy this book. Nadija is a young Bosnian woman immigrating to the US with her American husband. I didn't know much about the Bosnian culture, so this was fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time to read about her youth. Once she moves to Boston, she thinks life will be settled, with a nice home, hard working husband and children. None of those come true. Instead her first years in the US are chaotic as her husband is mentally abusive and she is all alone. She is forced to get a series of jobs to survive, even pushed out by her husband to live on her own. Somehow, she manages to survive. While I did enjoy hearing about her experiences, it seemed almost stream of consciousness and sometimes I had a hard time keeping up with the timing. She does jump back and forth in time, so sometimes I was confused when things had happened. It's almost like each chapter is its own short story. She mentioned that she did have a short story published, and I would love to read that. The sections about her beloved family are the strongest sections, and I wanted to know more about them.