The book was released 7 years ago, but what a few years it’s been.

This likely fits into the ‘might not be published today’ category: a white guy writing the perspective of a black woman. It isn’t exploitative like American Dirt or A Little Life, but it still provokes a bit of discomfort, when considered against books like Homes: A Refugee Story or Americanah.

That aside, I’m glad we have it. Published not long after the Brexit referendum, it is a full-throated takedown of the UK’s response to the migrant crisis. The story is of Irene (or Dalila, depending who you are), a Kenyan woman escaping to England in fear for her life. The ridiculousness of the claim system, the fully livestock-like way that asylum seekers are handled, and the helplessness of the people within the system itself are addressed in very blunt language.

Donald put a ton of research into this, and the book shines when it portrays the inhumanity that is designed into the system — the interview process, the ‘safety measures’ that are deliberately humiliating to the claimants, and the conditions within the facilities that they are forced to live in.

It’s less-than-great when it slips into lecturing. There are a few sections where we hear the stories of secondary or tertiary characters – these read as though they’re being dictated by real people, but are stylistically out of place in the book. The stories themselves are useful as different perspectives and experiences in the system, but could have been either integrated better with the story, or made to stand aside as testaments from the surely real people who lived them.

At any rate — the book is emotionally impactful and kinetic. If it’s read as a critique of the system it stands up very well, but more than once while reading the dialogue between African characters, or Dalila’s internal monologue, I was cringing a little.