I am going to write about a book that has had a great influence on me. The title of the book; Leila a Bosnian girl. It is about a girl who lived in Bosnian during the war, 1992-1995. The book is a story from real life, a novel and an autobiography. It is a story about Leila and her life during the war and after the war. The book is written by Alexandra Cavelius, based on interview she did with Leila.
In the book you get to follow Leila and her struggle and the effort she makes to survive. She is captured by the Serbian army and is put in a concentration camp when she is only 16 years old. She is alone in a camp full of sick and miserable people who are tortured and beaten to death. The nightmare does not end there.
Leila is a beautiful girl and the beautiful girls are sold to brothels. In the brothel she is forced to do things women are forced to do in brothels, disgusting things in a degrading way. In the beginning Leila has hopes of meeting her family again, to see her mother and brother and the rest of her family, but she has nor idea what the future holds. From there on the book gets even better; Leila is moved from brothel to brothel, from one disgusting soldier to another. Now she is beyond hope of meeting her family again, and she is just about to give up when she finds herself all alone a few years later in a dark forest without a clue of where she is and just a stranger’s face in front of her. Leila is not sure what this man’s intentions are and she is expecting the worst t happen.
This book had a great impact on me because when you read it you can really imagine everything that Leila is going through. Before I read the book, I did not know what horrible things people went trough and the ways people were tortured and killed, especially women.
It is a sad, sad story, a touching story and you can not really understand the point of it until you read the book yourself. The book changed me in a way. It made me respect people more, and respect my cultured and the country that I am from, and it made me feel proud. Is made me realize what my family and friends really mean to me and ho blessed I am to have them. It made me think about other people who are unfortunate, and those people who do not have a home to come back to after a hard day. Where will they go, when the world does not treat them right? Even worse what would a happy home be without having anyone to share it with? There is no greater feeling than the love of family and friends.
Most of us do not know how to appreciate the things we have, like family and friends, a house, a car, a TV, food and, most important, our freedom. Our freedom is one thing that no one can take from us. Leila had it all, a house, a TV, a family and friends, still someone decided to take that away that we need the most_; freedom. Leila’s free will was taken away from her, the possibility of making her own decisions about her future. This is just one of many proofs of how unfair life can be, and how stupid people can act. One of many proof of how people do not think about how their actions can affect other peoples lives. People are still in denial of what happened during the war, a book like this can open people’s eyes. A book like this can make people understand how one man can end so many lives and change so many others. The memories of the war are still there and some memories can not fade away, even if you try your hardest to make them disappear. Some things are just meant to be remembered for ever, so they do not recur again.
What would you do if you wake up one morning and find your life upside down and suddenly you have to realize that everything you lived for is gone and the only thing running trough your head is the thought of survival?
