"I Believe in Zero" - Review

by Andrew McDonald

            The opening of Caryl M. Stern’s I Believe in Zero feels like the opening of a TV show you’d find on AMC during their peak Breaking Bad-era. She recounts her experience of meeting Rosa, a new mother in Mozambique, who informs Stern that this child is the “first one that survived.”

            And with that, the book begins.

I Believe in Zero by Caryl M. Stern
Photo Credit: UNICEF

            Stern’s recounting of her time with UNICEF is a powerful, emotional journey that will leave you feeling both cathartic and exhausted by the end of each chapter, which, essentially, function as episodes (going back to my TV show analogy). Stern’s writing is clear and deliberate. She tells her story with relative ease and grace, skimming over details that aren’t as impactful and really drawing the action and emotion when the moment calls for it.

            I keep brining up the similarities between her writing and good TV, because, well, her writing is incredibly cinematic. When she describes a new environment, I not only pictured it in my mind, but I could smell the air, feel the weather and environment. I choked up several times, but none so much as the initial encounter with Rosa, whose story only gets more harrowing the more you read.

"But does she cook meth?...Didn't think so."
Photo Credit: AMC

            Overall, I would definitely recommend I Believe in Zero to anyone who enjoys a cinematic storytelling style of nonfiction. I would never have considered myself a fan of this kind of book before reading it, but, if it’s good, it’s good, and I Believe in Zero has made me a believer.