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What Changes Everything

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What Changes Everything is truly an American story on an international stage, told through an ensemble of heartening characters. In a gamble to save her kidnapped husband’s life, Clarissa Barbery makes the best decisions she can in the dark nights of Brooklyn. Stela Sidorova, who owns a used bookstore in Ohio, writes letter after letter hoping to comprehend the loss of a son on an Afghan battlefield and to reconnect with the son who abandoned her when his brother died. And Mandy Wilkens, the mother of a gravely wounded soldier from Texas, travels to Kabul to heal wounds of several kinds. At the same time, What Changes Everything is the story of two Afghans who reveal the complexity of their culture, the emotions that hold it together and those that threaten to fracture it. These lives are braided into an extraordinary novel about the grace of family.

262 pages, Hardcover

First published May 21, 2013

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About the author

Masha Hamilton

8 books90 followers
Masha Hamilton is the author of five novels: Staircase of a Thousand Steps, (2001) a Booksense pick by independent booksellers and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; The Distance Between Us, (2004) named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal, The Camel Bookmobile, (2007) also a Booksense pick, and 31 Hours, named by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009. Her latest novel, What Changes Everything, comes out in May 2013.

Currently serving as the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, she worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, where she covered the intefadeh, the peace process and the partial Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. She also spent five years in Moscow, where she was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a newspaper column, “Postcard from Moscow,” and reported for NBC/Mutual Radio. She reported from Afghanistan in 2004 and in 2006, she traveled in Kenya to research The Camel Bookmobile and to interview street kids in Nairobi and drought and famine victims in the isolated northeast.

She has founded two non-profits, the Camel Book Drive to supply books to children in northeastern Kenya, and the Afghan Women's Writing Project, to support the voices of Afghan women. A Brown University graduate, she has been awarded fiction fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has taught for Gotham Writers’ Workshop, at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and in numerous other settings. She is a licensed shiatsu practitioner and is currently studying nuad phaen boran, Thai traditional massage.

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5 stars
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39 (49%)
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Kalen.
578 reviews97 followers
May 25, 2013
**** 1/2

Fantastic. Another powerful, complex book from Masha Hamilton. I am always in awe of the rare author who can pack *so much* into so few pages--this one comes in at just 262. But there is so much in those pages, more than I've gotten out of books twice the size. These characters and their stories will be in my head for a long time.

Profile Image for Ariel.
140 reviews
May 15, 2016
I thought this book was really well done. I usually have a hard time with narratives that jump back and forth between several characters, but this one managed to weave itself together in a pretty tight-knit way. I genuinely liked most of the characters, and their feelings came through strongly and authentically. I will say that each main character is treated fairly superficially; I think you could write an entire book about Clarissa, or Amin, or Todd, or Stela, or Danil. But I enjoyed the snapshots of their experiences. A good and compelling look at the many different kinds of pain that a war can cause, and the ways in which human connection can transcend hatred and cruelty. Although the book felt optimistic, it didn't feel naive - it was clear that not all stories get a happy ending. Overall, I'd definitely recommend it.
Profile Image for Jessica.
229 reviews3 followers
September 4, 2016
I thought this was really powerful, and I liked the varying perspectives. I wish it had been slightly longer so we could get to know the characters better.
Profile Image for Kathy.
1,249 reviews20 followers
July 4, 2018
3.5 stars. There are two reasons why this is not a solid 4 from me. The first reason is that for the first part of the book, I had to keep going back to figure out who the characters were, and how they were connected (I almost made myself a cheat sheet). Once I got into the book, however, I was transported, and felt each character's anguish. There is nothing easy about Afghanistan as this book clearly points out.

My second criticism of this book is that some of the characters were stereotypical, as if they had been written to be foils for the main characters with no real depth. In particular, the daughter Ruby and the FBI agent Jack. However, both of these characters are no more than annoyances in the larger story as the other characters are deftly drawn.
Profile Image for Vera Marie.
Author 1 book18 followers
October 30, 2013
Before you even open this book, you get a treat. The dust jacket is the most striking cover art I’ve seen this year. And the style and choice of artwork becomes clear when you read the book. I spend a lot of time complaining about book covers, so I wanted to take this opportunity to praise the publisher, Unbridled Books and designers David Ryski and Kathleen Lynch.

Even better–in this case you CAN tell a book by its cover. What Changes Everything is as innovative, arresting, gritty, relevant and personal as the cover suggests. Masha Hamilton clearly knows the country and the people–Americans in Brooklyn, Afghans, Russian emigres–that she writes about. She currently serves as the press officer for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. (Since this was written she has returned to the U.S.) Even before that, she had been a regular in Afghanistan, and founded the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

Masha Hamilton is a fearless writer. That too, hardly is surprising, given that she spent years as a foreign correspondent, some of that in war zones. Her bold approach to life is echoed in her bold approach to writing.

Normally I am put off by novels that are fragmented–jumping from character to character as point of view shifts in each chapter and I have to piece the story together. But the style is entirely appropriate for this story that combines the main story of an aid worker who is kidnapped in Kabul when he goes to buy ice cream, with the story of a mother and brother trying to make sense of the death in Afghanistan of their son/brother, and the story of a mother of a double amputee–injured while on duty in Afghanistan.

The small pieces of each person’s story comes together to form a picture of a still puzzling situation, both within Afghanistan and between the U.S. and Afghanistan. The questions of lawlessness, authority (who has it and is it legitimate), individual responsibility and respect for others all roll around inside the pages of What Changes Everything.

This is a portion of the review I wrote on my website in praise of this book. To read the entire review, go to A Traveler's Library.
Profile Image for Serena.
Author 1 book102 followers
July 12, 2013
What Changes Everything by Masha Hamilton is a look at the reverberating impact of war on not only the countries directly affected, but also those countries who send people to help refugees and the injured. Todd Barbery coordinates aid for refugees and hospitals with the help of his Afghan contact, Amin. Todd is far from his wife Clarissa of about three years and his only daughter Ruby, who is just beginning her own life, but while Clarissa fears for his safety and has wrestled a promise from him that this will be his last rotation in Afghanistan, Todd wishes not to be so closely guarded and insists on moments of freedom.

Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2013/07/w...
Profile Image for Berta Devant.
23 reviews10 followers
October 31, 2013
I love this book because it gives you a glimpse of how war effects everyone, not only the soldiers that fight it. The story follows an asrtist who lost his brother, a mother whose son came back crimpled and needs to understand why he is depressed and a man that trying to help Afghan people gets kidnap and his newly wife who doesnt believe on violence.

All this characters find each other in situations they shouldnt, casualties of a war they arent fighting. This book is so greatly written it will make you think how a war would effect your loved ones and how the wars have already affected you. And at the end of it you will need some time to go over your toughs and be able to move on. Because once you realize that war affects more than just soldiers, everything changes.
Profile Image for Florinda.
318 reviews148 followers
June 27, 2013
As she shifts between the perspectives of half a dozen characters, Masha Hamilton explores geopolitical conflict through the individual experiences of a kidnapped relief worker and his wife, two soldiers and their families, and a deposed political leader refusing to be exiled from his native land. That land, and the common bond between these characters, is Afghanistan, and what happens there is What Changes Everything.

MORE: http://www.3rsblog.com/2013/06/book-t...
Profile Image for Laurie.
265 reviews
February 14, 2014
I really loved this book.I'm not sure Mandy's story was necessary and very little time was spent on it.Otherwise i liked the way the stories tied in together.One of those books that will keep me thinking for a long time.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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