The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky By Ahmedi, Farah with Tamim Ansary

Title: The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky

Author: Ahmedi, Farah with Tamim Ansary

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Reader: Masuda Sultan

Comments

CIP Information: When ABC News's Good Morning America asked its viewers to write essays describing true-life experiences about romance, adventure, loss, and overcoming tremendous odds, the network never imagined receiving more than twenty thousand pages of inspiring, heartbreaking, and hopeful stories. But that's exactly what happened. After a panel of bestselling authors and editors chose three finalists, America was given the opportunity to vote on which aspiring author would have his or her story published. The Story of My Life is the result of the most ambitious and all-inclusive search ever conducted to discover and publish an extraordinary life story.

On my fabulous trip back to South Dakota, I had some time to kill while I drove. So I got some audio books. I picked up this one because I remembered a little something about it, and I love stories about what it was like in Afghanistan.

This story needs to be read or heard. The audio version is slightly abridged, but you couldn’t really tell from hearing it.

This is a powerful story, but one that needs to be shared. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, but after hearing this story I new I should just suck it up and get over it.

Farah takes us through her life from before she was born, through to the current day. She lost her leg at the age of seven. She spent three years in Germany by herself before she was able to return home to Afghanistan. Then on day when she and her mother were at the bazaar a rocked hit her house. It killed her father and both of her sisters. She along with her mother and two brothers, continue on fighting to make ends meet. Then the Taliban took over. And women couldn’t go outside without men. Then the Taliban “recruited” all men over the age of ten for their army. Her brothers, along with the rest of the males in Farah’s neighborhood, disappeared in the night hoping to make it to Pakistan. She never heard from them again. So before the age of twelve she lost a leg, and a steel rod in the other leg, she lost her father, her two sisters and her two brothers, and the Taliban to boot. Her mother has asthma really bad and had to go to the hospital a lot.

Through lots of pain and suffering Farah not only gets her mother to relative safety in Pakistan, but eventually to the United States. And even though she could be very bitter, Farah could be very spiteful and expect people to provide for her, she isn’t anything like that. She is very thankful for everything. At the time that she writes this book she is 19 years old and in her senior year of high school. She looks back at each point in her life and sees how it all could have been so different. If just one person didn’t take time or didn’t stop, or didn’t show some compassion; she wouldn’t have lived.

This was one of the hardest books I ever listened to or read. I am really glad I did. It really gave me a better perspective of what it is really like there. While this book is tough nearly brutal to hear at times, I feel better for hearing it. Everyone has a story; we all can learn from each other. If we take time to learn about each other maybe we wouldn’t be so mean to each other.

Take time to read or listen to this book. It is worth it.