For many people, war is an abstract concept. It happens on TV, on social media, in bits and fragments that are totally disconnected from the lives that many of us here in North America live. For me, war has been an altogether too real chapter of my life. I wrote this book to take readers on a journey with me, to take them through the chaos and the devastation and the rare moments of beauty that encapsulated my escape from the war in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.