Bear Witness; The Pursuit of Justice In A Violent Land

  Title of the book:

Author:

Publisher:

Publishing Date:

ISBN:

Summary:

Author Info:

Personal Opinion:

Normally when reading a nonfiction book the author often does a preface or introduction in describing on why they chose to write this book. This one doesn't have neither and I had to look in the first chapter to find as to why the book is written: "Among the infinitude of lessons that have been drawn from this tale is a warning that justice can be miscarried and that childish simplifications like 'good and evil' and 'hero and villain' do not always neatly correspond to the punisher and the punished" (11) Simply put the story is divided into three parts; introduction to the most dangerous barrio in Honduras and to our would be heroes and how they conceived of trying to help people who lived there. The second part is dealing with legal aspects as the charity grew bigger and the third part is taking on the biggest fish in Honduras as well as trying to influence the politics and laws to benefit the everyday rather than selective elite. While I loved the book and how the story flew like a narrative, I definitely felt confused by second and third part and would have appreciated a timeline of major Honduran events as well as a character sheet of who's who because it was difficult to keep up with the characters. Aside from that, a very compelling and addictive story of taking steps towards creating justice in a land that knows nothing of justice. 

This was given for review

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)