Emergency Sex

(And other desperate measures)
Authors: Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait, Andrew Thomson
Subject: humanitarian
My rating: 2.5*

About the book:
This was the next book on my list on the subject of humanitarian work. I picked it based on the great reviews this book received. It is written by 3 UN workers sent on different missions, and it recounts their take on peace, war, humanitarian work, politics, and...the sexual encounters of the female UN worker while on missions.

Although many readers didn't seem to mind this combo of (pleasure) sex in a war zone, I found this pairing quite disturbing. I find it very hard to understand how a woman would go in a war zone on a humanitarian mission and then take off with a new 'local boyfriend', doing drugs and reporting her sex experiences in a run-down shack somewhere in Africa. Or perhaps it was based on the idea of 'make love, not war'.

The UN tried to stop the publication of this book due to the author's critique about the UN effectiveness in many humanitarian missions. The UN actually fired two of the authors after the book was published, this creating only more leverage for book. Opposition of the UN helped greatly in reviewing and recommending this book. Unfortunately, I found this book did not deliver, on any fronts.