A Greek tragedy One day, a deadly shipwreck, and the human cost of the refugee crisis

Review by Booklist Review

On October 28, 2015, a decrepit boat overloaded with more than 350 refugees left Sivrice on the Turkish coast, attempting to cross the Aegean to Greece's island of Lesvos, an entry point into the EU for smugglers of refugees. In gale-force winds, the ship disintegrated midway across. Some people were trapped and sank with the boat as it fell apart; those thrown into the cold water either had no life jackets or inadequate ones. Horrified witnesses from both the Turkish and Greek sides jumped into action to rescue as many as possible. It was the largest loss of life in the ongoing refugee crisis caused by upheaval in Syria and Afghanistan. Interviews with survivors, residents of both Sivrice and Lesvos who stepped up, and international relief workers turn statistics into vivid portraits of desperate and heroic people. In her debut book, journalist Carstensen powerfully combines their stories with background about the political machinery that exacerbated both the refugee crisis and the response to the disaster, telling a contemporary history of heartbreaking loss with clarity and compassion.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Journalist Carstensen debuts with a riveting blow-by-blow account of the Oct. 28, 2015, sinking of a boat full of refugees near the Greek island of Lesbos. Nearly 300 passengers were rescued after the overcrowded boat carrying them from Turkey capsized in the Aegean, while several dozen drowned--the single largest loss of life of the Mediterranean refugee crisis that year. Carstensen creates a vivid panorama of the event that also serves as a kaleidoscopic look at the conveyor belt--like system that turned the Mediterranean into a mass "graveyard" over the course of the 2010s. She includes fascinating perspectives from the residents of Turkish seaside towns where the financial incentives for people smuggling are so high that almost everyone is involved ("Locals who didn't take part in this business were seen as imbeciles," one interviewee explains), Greek rescue workers who recall arriving at a hellish scene (one recounts how a fellow deckhand spiraled into a panic attack as "cries for help rang out at them from every direction"), and a multinational group of survivors whose harrowing recollections bring vivid life, both terrible and sweet, back to the nameless dead (playful children roughhousing with their parents before the wreck; a life-jacketed man bobbing in the water during the aftermath, attempting, but failing for some time, to drown himself after losing his children). It's a crushing account of a senseless tragedy. (Mar.)Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly stated that more than 200 passengers drowned and several dozen were rescued.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An up-close look at an ongoing calamity. Syria's civil war and America's debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq have forced millions to flee their homes; 35% of these are children. Many refugees attempt to reach Europe. In response, Western nations have hardened their hearts, built walls, and reinforced border guards, but desperate families keep trying. Journalist Carstensen follows four subjects in her searing first book: an Afghan bank official traveling with his wife and two children, a 13-year-old Afghan girl who flees with her parents and three siblings, a school counselor, and a young female artist from Syria. Immigration opponents maintain that these are the dregs of society. In fact, poor people rarely emigrate. It's too expensive. For example, the Afghan bank official pays smugglers $25,000 to convey his family to Europe. Simply crossing a few miles of ocean from Turkey to a Greek island costs thousands. Carstensen describes their miserable journey driven by rapacious, penny-pinching smugglers. The final leg to safety involves crossing five miles to Lesvos, a Greek island, on fragile rubber rafts or broken-down boats. In 2015 refugees began arriving--cold, wet, exhausted, often as bodies washed up on the shore. Greece's government was hostile and remains so; U.N. and international aid groups responded slowly, but Carstensen emphasizes a minority of islanders, local fishermen, and foreign volunteers who rescued many and provided food, shelter, and medical care so well that the island was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She focuses on Oct. 28, 2015, when smugglers crammed 300 refugees into a decrepit hulk that fell to pieces halfway across. Despite heroic rescue efforts, about 80 died, more of them children because they spent hours in cold water and are more susceptible to hypothermia. Carstensen's four subjects survived, but not their families. A vivid snapshot of a broken asylum system. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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