A powerful yet uneven reading experience. 
 This book felt both overwritten and underwritten. By overwritten I mean Yapa's often beautifully vivid descriptions slipped into repetitive melodrama at times. Some of the language was just too flowery, it became kind of tortured and even laughable in a few instances. By underwritten, I mean that I didn't fully buy into certain characters, meaning they didn't feel completely authentic and their actions did not feel organic. I think trying to do justice to 7 point of view characters in just 300 pages was too tall an order. Yapa would have been better off focusing on 3 or 4 characters tops so he could have done them full justice. 
 However, despite these flaws this is a book worth reading. Yapa does a great job stirring the reader's emotions with his visceral, cinematic descriptions of WTO protests. I also really liked how he integrated flashbacks in a way that reinforced the overheated, disorienting nature of the protests once the violence began. The descriptions of police brutality are really gutting, and feel very relevant in 2016. While I initially didn't care for the interludes with the Sri Lankan finance minister and didn't think they were necessary, the final payoff was great and really packed a wallop. 
 This is a book of of great individual scenes. It doesn't really hang together as a cohesive narrative because it is trying to do too much in too short a space, but despite this book's faults parts of it will move and impress you.