Her country has fallen into a civil war, as a long-standing resistance now openly challenges her uncle, who has taken over her father’s place as leader. The conflict is remote and doesn’t receive much coverage on mainstream American media, despite the international nature of the area where she’s now living. Haunted by unwelcome memories from her past, ravaged by panic attacks from the violent nature of her escape from her homeland, Laila is still excepted to somehow assimilate into “normal” American life, including high school. Her life now is at odds with everything she grew up believing about herself, her world, and how people are supposed to live and behave. The most troubling change for Laila, however, is the way in which her father’s regime is portrayed here: the media and the American government have long branded him a dictator, who lavishly favored those in his inner circle and brutally, ruthlessly ruled over the rest of her country’s population. How can Laila come to terms with so much change at once? What is true, what is a lie, and how can she hope to find any answers?
Former CIA operative J.C. Carleson‘s The Tyrant’s Daughter is fiction inspired by fact. In many ways, Laila is a girl like any other – she’s dealing with questions of guilt, choices, and identity – she’s just facing these questions and their ambiguous answers on the periphery of war, entangled in a political web not of her own making. For all of the news reports we hear daily about conflicts, large and small, across the world, how often does one even give a thought to the families of tyrants, dictators, generals, and other despots? By bringing us an intensely personal story, full of details, internal conflicts, and raw emotions, The Tyrant’s Daughter fulfills the inherent promise that books make to readers: to let you in on a life that you might not otherwise have experienced and to open your heart and mind to another facet of the varied human experience.
- Posted by Cori