Hello, and happy Monday! Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadian peeps! 🦃 I hope you’re all enjoying a big meal and spending time with loved ones!
Today I’m going to be posting my review of Justine van der Leun’s book We Are Not Such Things.

We Are Not Such Things by: Justine van der Leun: On August 25, 1993, Amy Biehl, an American activist who was living in South Africa was murdered; stabbed and stoned to death, the murderer unknown. Journalist, Justine van der Leun spent four years researching and investigating to try and finds answers to questions left unsolved. To say this story was interesting is true, but it’s what led to this story and the lessons and stories that the author learned while researching that is the most interesting. Sometimes, it truly is the journey and not the destination that is worth the while. The reader can tell that a lot of hard work and a lot of research went into this book. Even though the author didn’t get the answers she was looking for, she got experiences and to meet people who thought they’d never have their voice and stories heard, she gave them that. As for the book itself, it was slow going. The beginning was really dry and the way she’d start a thought, start a new one in the middle, then go back to the original thought was distracting and made it hard for the reader to keep up with what was happening. If it had been structured differently, it may have flowed and read better. That’s not to say this book was bad, it was definitely information heavy, but the reader has to be prepared and ready for that, otherwise it feels like an overflow of information. This was a book that may not be for everyone, yet it was still a thorough and compelling book.