Beasts of No Nation, by Uzodinma Iweala.

A novel set in the middle of an African civil war, protagonist Agu must cope with an environment that sucks him into the life of a soldier. Lost from his family and forced to join a group of guerrilla rebels, Agu learns first-hand what it is to kill.

Iweala spares the reader nothing in this gripping account from the perspective of a young boy coping with what he is and what he is becoming. Set in first person present tense, with a dialect of broken English all his own, Agu takes us through the very shaping moments of his transformation into a man.

Though the unconventional format of Agu's narration is at first daunting, it slipped quietly into my subconscious after only a few pages. What he is saying is so irrevocably powerful, how he says it becomes only part of the fun.

Just be ready to face an onslaught of very real moments if you want the meat of the message.

A must read.