The book, The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival, by Amra Sabic El-Rayess with Laura L. Sullivan, focuses on Amra Sabic, a bosniak teenager living in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War. The Bosnian war was a genocide of Bosnian muslims, specifically men and boys, and was fought between Bosnia and Serbia over land and power. A Bosniak is the name of a muslim Bosnian. Amra is walking with her father to get her cake for her “birthday” when they notice a large group of people. They get closer and they realize they are refugees from other countries fleeing from Serbian persecution. Amra knows danger is close. The memoir follows Amra and her cat, Maci (Maci is cat in Bosnian), as she experiences what no person should ever experience. Being harassed by the Serbian army, her friends leaving her because she’s muslim, watching bombs fall from the sky onto her beautiful city, and witnessing people die. After everything being thrown at her, she still continues to persevere for herself, her family, and Maci.

The theme in the book is perseverance leads to success and survival. Throughout the book, Amra wants to give up. She wants to collapse and just freeze, shut the world out, but she doesn’t. She perseveres for Maci. For her family and friends. For school. She doesn’t persevere for herself, she perseveres for everyone else. One symbol that I believe captures this theme is Maci. In the book, Amra goes through many traumatic events like near-death experiences and stuffing her emotions. Maci helps her persevere through these rough moments and events by comforting her and allowing Amra to vent and talk about these events. Even though Maci is a cat, she helps Amra persevere through these hardships and helps her and her family survive.

The book is set up in chapters and years. For example, the book is sectioned into the different years of the war, so 1992, 1993: Summer, and so on. But it is mainly sectioned into chapters. The author, Amra Sabic El-Rayess, uses a first-person point of view for the book which helps greatly in moving the plot along but also helps reveal the author’s purpose, with the author's purpose being to tell her story of what happened in the Bosnian War. She also uses lots of imagery. For example, “It is aggressively masculine and rank: sweat, liquor, grease, and gunpowder”(Sabic 1). Also, “... the beans cooked slowly with meat until they almost meld into the meat and fat. They cook until they are tender, almost creamy”(Sabic 10). These are just some of the many examples of imagery Amra uses. This use of imagery allows the reader to feel as if they are in the book with Amra. 

I would recommend this book if the reader wants to learn more about the Bosnian War, likes war books or memoirs, or just in general because it is such a great book. The excellent use of imagery pulls you into the book and makes you want to keep reading. This book also gives a lens into the world we live in today since it is about a past event. The book allows the reader to learn about the horrors of genocide and war and teaches the reader to have an open mind. This is an excellent book with many things to learn and a great read. This is for sure going on my bookshelf!