Zagreb, 1991. Ana Jurić is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatia’s capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana’s idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Ana’s sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.

New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though she’s tried to move on from her past, she can’t escape her memories of war—secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her country’s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before.

Moving back and forth through time, Girl at War is an honest, generous, brilliantly written novel that illuminates how history shapes the individual. Sara Nović fearlessly shows the impact of war on one young girl—and its legacy on all of us. It’s a debut by a writer who has stared into recent history to find a story that continues to resonate today.
 

The SO Very Literary Book Club meets on the 3rd Thursday of every month from 2:00-3:30 pm.  
For 2024, we will be taking a trip around the world with selections that take place in countries near and far.
Everyone is welcome.  Come join us for a year of passionate book discussions!

Registration is appreciated.

Please stay at home if you or any member of your family are sick. Thank you

We look forward to seeing you!  

2024 Titles:

1/18/24 - My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
2/15/24 - True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
3/21/24 - The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
4/18/24 - How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
5/16/24 - Girl at War by Sara Novic
6/20/24 - How Iceland Changed the World by Egill Bjarnason
7/18/24 - Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8/15/24 - Human Acts by Han Kang
9/19/24 - Empress of the Nile by Lynne Olson
10/17/24 - On the Trail of the Jackalope by Michael P. Branch (with the author in attendance)
11/21/24 - Alamut by Vladimir Bartol
12/19/24 - Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson