City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence

Hello my lovely readers! I had high hopes for this one and was left feeling...meh. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks or plastic, its entire economy is grey, and its citizens survive on rations and luck. Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a first-hand witness to a strange and desperate limbo-land, getting to know many of those who have come there seeking sanctuary. Among them are Guled, a former child soldier who lives for football; Nisho, who scrapes an existence by pushing a wheelbarrow and dreaming of riches; Tawane, the indomitable youth leader; and schoolgirl Kheyro, whose future hangs upon her education.

In City of Thorns, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp and to sketch the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped there.

MY THOUGHTS 
I really wanted to like this book more! I thought it'd be similar to The Yahoo Boys in how it focused on the people it interviewed, but alas, I was let down. The nine individuals documented for this book more so took a backseat to the loads of context that was provided throughout the book.

I definitely appreciate the context of what was happening in Somalia, Kenya and the world in the mid-2010s, but I think I was expecting a more people-focused narrative versus world-focused narrative.