LET'S GO SWIMMING ON DOOMSDAY

Narrator Kevin R. Free breathes dramatic urgency into Anderson's intense story about 15-year-old Abdi, who is forced to join the ruthless jihadi group al-Shabaab in Somalia. Free infuses his reading with raw emotion, giving each character a distinct voice--from the terrifying jihadi general's knife-edge roughness to the smooth, nasal drawl of the American black-ops agent. Alternating chapters take Abdi from Somalia to Kenya, where he is a refugee hiding at a girls' school. The female voices are equally compelling, but it is Abdi's quiet voice that makes this audiobook so painfully riveting. Listeners hear and feel Abdi's horror and numb, helpless despair at the atrocities he witnesses--and perpetrates--and we rejoice at his redemption. S.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2019]