I Read Our War and I'm Pretty Sure It's Non-Fiction

Our War by Craig DiLouie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am so unnerved by how plausible this book seems. A second American Civil War caused by Trumpers (in this universe they probably refer to themselves as “Marsh-ans” or something, but we all know they’re Trumpers), a post-apocalyptic future in which big cities exist more like third-world countries, and a world in which the most unrealistic aspect is the fact that apparently nobody’s dropped a nuclear bomb yet? Yeah, DiLouie is basically just saying the quiet part of my constant feeling of impending doom out loud.

If you didn’t feel the same level of, like, deja vu for the future I won’t be surprised, because for me, the most unnervingly plausible part of this book is DiLouie’s street-level knowledge of Google Maps. A couple of chapters in, I actually Googled him to see if, like John Green with his Funky Bones reference that first tipped me off to his own locality, DiLouie is also a Hoosier… and he’s actually from New Jersey? Well, his Google Earth skills are marvelous, because I could mentally follow one of the main characters, Hannah, from the refugee camp to the Free Women headquarters to the Brickyard Crossing golf course--the only thing missing was a Children’s Museum of Indianapolis sighting. Imagine the pathos DiLouie could have packed into an image of the life-sized dinosaur statues bombed and broken!

But even without the reality boost of a setting that is my closest big city (and a name-drop of my own hometown… we tried, but alas, the rebels got us), I think this book would have been unsettlingly real. I mean, deep down aren’t we all surprised that January 6 didn’t end up in a full-on Civil War? Deep down, don’t we all think that Civil War was just postponed, not completely staved off?

With that realistic setting, DiLouie’s main premise--the use of child soldiers by all sides of the war, at all levels of the conflict--was vivid and disturbing. Here's the UNICEF definition of children recruited by armed groups, and one of the main characters in Our War is a UNICEF official who's come to evaluate the needs of America's children during this war. In Our War, the rebels had the more predictable, stereotypical uses for their child soldiers, terrible but nothing I’ve not read about before, but what really got me was how the “good guys” also used children. It was devious and compelling, manipulative and awful, and yeah, I totally buy how it went down. One day, you’re telling an orphaned child that everyone in the militia is her mother now and you’re feeding her and praising her and giving her a home, and the next day, you’re putting a suicide bomb in her backpack and sending her over the wall to the enemy encampment.

The only part of the book that didn’t really ring true to me was Hannah’s final chapter. DiLouie doesn’t usually pull his punches, so I kind of think that he just bummed himself out too much and was all, “Dang, I’ve got to give this kid a redemption arc or I’ll never have another good night’s sleep!” I know kids are resilient, and this kid got a LOT of therapy, but I just don’t think she’s pulling out of that level of trauma.

Speaking of deja vu for the future… if The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t already have you planning out your overland, on-foot route to Canada, this book will get you motivated to figure that out. Remember: stay off the main roads and highways!

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