Per my review at Baltimore Reads: 
 Dave Eggers has proven himself a capable writer in many different forms. He has had his forays in fiction (You Shall Know Our Velocity!, How We Are Hungry) and nonfiction (What is the What, Teachers Have It Easy). He has written both a screenplay and novelization of Where the Wild Things Are and is one of the main editor's of the Best American Nonrequired Reading series. His bestselling memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 and put Eggers on the map as one of the most talented writers of the day. Many writers have a niche they like to settle into when it comes to the type of writing they create - Eggers seems to have no boundaries. 
 In Zeitoun, Eggers revisits the style he used in What is the What (which told the true story of a Sudanese boy's struggle as a refugee in his war-torn country). Readers are taken through the horrors of Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of Kathy and Abdulraham "Zeitoun" Zeitoun (pronounced Zay-toon), a married couple who owns their own construction business in New Orleans when the hurricane comes ashore and wreaks havoc in more ways than one. While Kathy and the kids take refuge in a relative's house outside the city, Zeitoun stays behind to keep an eye on the property he and his wife own throughout the city. Immediately after the storm he finds himself canoeing through the streets of New Orleans, helping anyone he can. But what starts out as a few days of good-natured rescue work turns into a nightmare more harrowing than the deadly hurricane. Through Zeitoun's plight, readers learn just how strangling Katrina's grasp was on a city unprepared for such an epic storm. In addition to collapsing buildings and levees, the entire judicial system crumbled in such a shocking fashion that left anyone as fair bait for wandering law enforcement - especially a Syrian immigrant like Zeitoun. 
 Zeitoun is a book about one of the most deadly natural disasters in our nation's history, but it is also an enlightening read on just how hard it is living in our "free" country if you are not part of the majority. Eggers paints the stories of Kathy and Zeitoun from their childhoods to the present, giving a name and a face to just two people extremely affected by Katrina's wrath. Zeitoun is an Arab Muslim who has lived in America for almost two decades and loves the freedom and opportunity the country has to offer, but is sometimes disappointed by just how judgmental its citizens behave. Kathy is a born-and-raised American who converted to Islam and faces many of the same ridicule and judgment that foreigners face just because she wears a hijab in public. As a couple, they have established the Zeitoun name as a mainstay in the community, serving whoever needs help with their houses to the best of their ability. And yet the reputation they build for themselves does nothing to stem the added grief and pain they go through even after Hurricane Katrina has passed over their city. 
 Eggers once again crafts a moving piece of literature that really makes the reader think long after the last word. Even though Hurricane Katrina happened over six years ago, the story of the Zeitouns is still relevant and worth reading. The sting of the destructive storm and the events that followed is still present today, and anyone looking to more accurately understand just how effecting it was on so many lives should certainly pick up this book.