Nothing Else Matters

I couldn't put this book down. This story of a family's struggle to survive events of Lebanon's civil was written with enough detail of time, place and character to put the reader into the story and keep him/her there, without being weighed down with overblown description. This is a book to be enjoyed by young teens as well as adults.

St John captures all the horror and the misery that the Lebanese civil war has produced. It vividly illustrates the fears and anguish that a single family has gone through. Those who have been through that sad part of the Lebanese history, will undoubtedly remember and relive the parts St John is retelling. However, the book is not only about the horrors of the war, it is a story of hope and love. Patricia St John brings the characters alive and transporrts the reader into their lives. The reader can feel part of the family, and gets immeresed in their lives. This book is well worth reading. It is touted as a teen oriented book, maybe dues to the simplicity of the language used or maybe because it is written by the famous "Children's Writer", but limiting the book to the teen readership alone is doing it an injustice. I highly recommend the book