The self-published MIG-23 Broke My Heart by A.K. Dawson is a coming of age tale about young man of eighteen who is conscripted into the South Africa Defense Force. Thomas is an artistic, laid back young man ill-prepared for the violence that he is about to experience while on a secret mission to the northern border shared by Namibia and Angola. Along with Thomas is his immediate supervisor, Skelator, who is a bully, and a black soldier called Maxwell. These three learn many life lessons while travelling through no-man’s land, but never quite manage to learn to get along with each other.

This story is set in the 1980’s, before Namibia was independent from South Africa, and although this story was full of violence and was both crude and rough in places, the author manages to point out some of the many problems that apartheid created, and the lack of value that the life of a black man was held in. This was definitely a story about a road trip to hell with Thomas losing his innocence mile by mile.

MIG-23 Broke My Heart was a book that I picked up to count towards my Commonwealth Challenge, but did not expect to enjoy. And although it had an unfinished quality about it, it did hold my attention while I was reading it, but I somehow suspect that is will be a book is like a trip to a hamburger joint, satisfying at the time but not memorable. ( )