The War Blog is Glen Sobey's debut novel. A young adult story set in a rural Alaskan town, which, being from a rural Alaskan town, Glen Sobey has a unique insight into. And it is accompanied by an original soundtrack (lyrics are included throughout the story and songs can be found at www.thewarblog.com)
The book is about Crystal Rose, the teenage daughter of an alcoholic and a drug addict, who lives with her grandparents. She is ridiculed by boys at school for being a "Twig", and after finding out her mother was raped as a teenager and witnessing sexual assault and sexism around her, she decides to take action and with the help of her love interest sets up a blog and issues a call to arms for young girls to take up the fight against the patriarchy.
Whilst I applaud Sobey's intentions with the book, a narrative like this is much needed in these times, an encouragement for girls to not stand for what the generations before them have, he unfortunately misses the mark a few too many times for my liking. One particular line sticks in my head, when Crystal is looking at her chest in the mirror: "too big and your assaulted, too small and your insulted." This feeds to the fact that rape and sexual assault is about sexual desire rather than power and violence. Women of all shapes and sizes are both assaulted and insulted.
Like I said, I understand what Sobey is trying to acheive and I applaud it, and I definitely think it's still worth a read. These stories are definitely important. But being a white male, it is hard for Sobey to really give perspective on the issues women and people of colour face.
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