Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for this reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

When I was in late elementary, and early middle school I became very interested in apartheid. So much so that several reports I had to do featured the topic to the best of my abilities at that age and with the resources I had to craft those reports. I remember being brain-boggled and stunned that people could treat people so horribly. It just didn't make sense to me. So the South African problem of apartheid and its climb to escape it has been on my radar for a very long time.

Amy Biehl was murdered in a Cape Town township on August 25, 1993. In South Africa, her name and story are well-known and used as a shining example of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). Four years after her killers were imprisoned for her murder, they were released under the TRC in the efforts the country was taking to right the apartheid wrongs. Two of her killers, in fact, become trusted employees at the Amy Biehl Foundation started by her parents who had vocally forgiven the murderers years earlier. This all seemed slightly unbelievable and strange to Justine van der Leun who had just moved to Cape Town with her fiance, soon-to-be husband. So, with not much else to do and no friends yet in this strange new land for a midwest American girl, Justine set out to research the TRC and specifically Amy Biehl's life and story a bit more. She didn't know if she would find anything new or newsworthy but she pressed on anyway. What happened was 3 years of becoming enmeshed in the lives of the people at the center of the Any Biehl story, 3 years of a lot of sleepless nights thinking and researching, 3 years of diving deep into the murky waters of the history of South Africa.

I want to say I enjoyed this book but I'm not sure enjoyed is the most accurate word. I really appreciated this book. There, that's better. Justine uses the Amy Biehl murder to frame the apartheid history of South Africa. She begins at the very beginning that she can find and builds the history of the country up for the reader to give understanding and context to why Amy Biehl died on August 25, 1993. She is honest and forthright about the pitfalls of the TRC instead of just applauding it as the world at large did. I really appreciated a deep look into what we never received through news reports. The TRC, and Mandela's election to President, WAS without a doubt healing in many ways but as with all things, there is an underbelly and Justine was able to suss out the underbelly parts. In order to understand in the fullest way possible, we must have every bit of information possible and Justine does that in this title - she doesn't pass judgment on any of it, just reports it and lets the reader decide how to judge or not judge it. She stayed remarkably unbiased. Was that easier to do because she wasn't reporting on activities and history of her own country, therefore she could remain unbiased? If she delved into America's history with apartheid (we don't call it that but that is in fact what it is) would she have been able to remain as unbiased?

I learned A LOT from this book. So much, actually, that weeks after finishing it I am still thinking about and considering many things. I'm thinking about my early years of interest in apartheid, my astonishment at how awful people can and do treat others, and how that early awareness continues to shape me and my worldview today. I'm thinking about the self-righteous ways in which countries posture themselves in the world when really all countries have their shameful and gross apartheids in one form or another. I'm just thinking a lot so I thank Justine for writing this story and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

We Are Not Such Things was not really what I expected when I downloaded. Not actually the type of thing I generally read either. That being said, I enjoyed the story; however depressing the actual event actually was.

First off, this isn't like the Serial podcast in any way other than it is narrated in the first person by the author. Sure while she is interviewing people, Ms. van der Leun finds out that things didn't happen the way the courts, the newspapers, and history say they did. But that shouldn't surprise anyone. Second, this isn't a murder mystery. What the summary for this book should say is: using the murder of Amy Biehl as a central event, the history of apartheid and culture in South Africa is explored. But that doesn't mean this wasn't a good book. Interviews and the friendships Ms. van der Leun cultivated provided lightness and humor to balance out the horrors that occured. It was a great balance between a personal narrative of Ms. Biehl's murder and a technical history of South Africa beginning a transition from apartheid and its continued struggles with leaving the past behind.