Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee

Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee

I saw Gbowee on the Daily Show and she was so funny and her story was so amazing that I knew I wanted to read this book, and I’m glad I did. It’s worth it. It’s a story of war and the people who suffer for it and the power of demanding change.

My only hesitation, and I’m not sure if it’s a hesitation as much as it is not having figured out my reaction for myself yet, is that this book will not really make you feel the pain of the people going through war. It will tell you, blatantly, about it. It will tell you of the rape, the killing, the boys with guns. But for the most part, it is all told, and as a reader it never broke my heart more than, say, a news story would. It’s a catch-22 — I appreciated it, because I’m not sure I could have gotten through the book if I had felt every moment of the people’s pain. But then I also never fully felt their pain.

The other thing is, in many ways, what people focus on is the “sex strike” the women go on in order to change things. Don’t focus on that. This is not that story. It happens, but the media has clung to that small part of the story more than it deserves. It is really about women standing up to change the country, and the sex strike was one small part of that movement.

It’s worth reading. Especially when you feel like seeing the world outside your own, comfortable space.