Customer Rating:  
Summary: Could have been so much better
Comment: Saving lives while putting yours under risk sounds like the perfect material for a compelling memoir and the juicy title of this one sounds like it would deliver in spades. However I was ultimately disappointed by "Emergency Sex".
The book is written by three aid workers: Ken, a recent Harvard graduate; Heidi, a social worker from New York; and Andrew, an idealistic doctor from New Zealand. The three meet initially when they are all working in Cambodia and their stories intersect as they work together and separately on assignment in various `90s trouble spots: Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia. The book is written by each of them in turn and the pace is quick and lively. Parts are exciting (the description of being in Somalia when the Black Hawk helicopter was downed) or very moving (the description of the terrible atrocities in Rwanda and Liberia).
So it's an interesting read but somehow it failed to grab me. The book does convey what its like to be an aid worker: alternating fear, adrenalin, exhaustion, hopelessness, cynicism and only very occasionally the sense that you've made a small difference to the world. It certainly gives the flavour of how terrible things were in these places and how the UN could have done things better. However the three personalities never rang true for me. I didn't feel that I got to know these people. They all sounded curiously alike to me and I got the sense that Ken perhaps penned all three stories. Heidi comes across as Ken's fantasy girl with her limpid eyes and active sexual appetite. Andrew also comes across as Ken's fantasy of the heroic and noble doctor who windsurfs in his spare time. I'm not saying that these aren't real people, just that they never leapt off the page and became real to me.
Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because the nature of aid work is such that it's one long grind, the book dragged along for me. While I didn't mind it, I never felt the urge to pick it up and read more. I felt several times that I could have skipped 100 pages here or there and it wouldn't have made much difference. Really, you could flip open the book in a bookstore, read a few pages here and there, and get the flavour of the entire piece. It's not a bad book by any stretch, but it could have been much better with judicious editing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: thrilling, captivating nonfiction
Comment: I bought this book based on a feeling it was good and I wasn't wrong. It's written by 3 very good authors, their writing style is sophisticated but simple enough not to boggle your mind. Three perspectives on a situation is a jewel in itself and it's nonfiction, an extra for me. You won't want to put it down.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The laughter & tears
Comment: I loved this book. I have recommended it to everyone- ex-Army, complacent city city kids. It doesn't have a sweet conclusion, but in that sense, nor does life. It starts off with the romantic dream of working for an NGO, and describes the kind of enlighenment that day to day living brings with any issue. On the eve of Remmberance, and with my closest friends who have been there, this has helped me to understand more so than any text book or lecture. My copy is well thumbed and I am proud.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Gritty and realistic
Comment: Having sent some time in some of these places during my Air Force days I was interesed to see a different perspective of these places. This book is not only gritty but honest and even when times seem boring this only punctuates the frustration and fear felt when times you thought things could not get worse, they do. As the entries (this is written in a journal style) continue you are drawn into the small group and begin to genuinely care about them.
Some of the atrocities recorded here are hard to stomach but have to read so that even when you are safe and comfortable at home you can appreciate that because you can't see evil in the world, it doesn't mean it's not there. This book is proof that there are good people who care but are constantly having their hands tied by those who just don't want to look bad.
Read it, read it, read it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Comment: I work in the sector and was fascinated by the account: it is very close to my own reality. It is fun, it is sad, it is enjoyable, it is scary. The best and the worst of the human kind.
The book is EXTREMELY well written, with the three authors overlapping their accounts/perspectives/stories chronologically.
I will certainly buy some few extra copies to give to some friends.
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