Necessary Targets

I have just finished Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler. It was definitely not what I expected and slightly different from her other stories I have read. Most of her stories are either short monologues or her narrative. This book was just one play. That being said, I enjoyed this book a lot. It was more moving than I could have imagined it to be. It’s a story about a therapist and an author going to a refugee camp in Bosnia to hear the women’s post-war stories. I love Ensler’s books because she always writes about things that usually go ignored. Most people don’t examine the pain and problems that occur after the war is over. People don’t realize that just because the war has stopped does not mean the problems have also stopped. Ensler explores the psychological damage women feel after the war is over and what condition they’re forced to live in in this book. She also looks at how different people respond to these women’s stories and struggles. This play was so short, but at the same time said so much. What really moved me was some of the last lines of the play in which the therapist describes how the experience of being with the women has changed her. “I have amnesia. I am no longer hungry. I am empty. I have lost my desire. America makes no sense to me. I am after nothing…And then, what if I were to tell you I was not unhappy? No, my ambition, my need to achieve, have it, have more, was the thing that made me unhappy. Always unhappy, always longing for more. Longing to be someone, to count, to matter, to make it.” I think those words really speak about the American ideal and how people lose sight of what’s really important and what really matters. I rate this book a 10. I’ve provided a link to where you can find the book http://www.amazon.com/Necessary-Targets-Eve-Ensler/dp/082221895X.

-J.