Reviews with content warning for Death - Minor Detail

Reviews tagging 'Death'

beccabereader's review

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challenging sad tense slow-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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chelseahelton's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

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samchase112's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Damn. I have to sit with this one. The writing was gripping, the premise gut-wrenching, the message beautiful and terrible all at once. Definitely something meant to be consumed in one sitting, and something I’d recommend to others.

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sammerp219's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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anneklein's review

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dark informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

This was so good. Both parts were enraging, in a good way, but the first one in particular made me feel a disdain that contained so many facets. There's the way the commander refuses to admit he has been bitten by the animal (possibly a snake?), which portrays so well the toxic masculinity of military environments. Then the politics of hygiene, with his efforts to keep himself clean even as he refuses to see his rotten insides; the book emphasises this imagery by repeating the scenes of routine washing and shaving. Later on, he even insists in his head that there is no way that the putrid smell coming from his hut is caused by his own wound. Another facet was obviously the imperialist discourse of the soldiers, the way they speak of their settling. The sterilisation using petrol, the cutting of hair, the humiliation with the water hose...

Yet throughout the violence, a few images appear of life pushing forward regardless. At one point, the commander finds a spider in his hut and spends the next hours looking for insects and crushing them under his feet. The metaphor here is so clear, even more so when considering the military boot as the specific foot that tramples them. And "meanwhile, a little insect advanced towards the edge of the room and slipped through a crack between the floor and the wall, escaping into the gap" (p. 23). After cutting the girl's hair and burning it in a pile alongside her clothes: "Far from the flames that consumed her clothes, a few tiny black ringlets of hair remained scattered across the sand" (34). Finally, on one of the commander's escapades into the hills, "a small black bird charted a line through the sky, which turned a deeper shade of blue [...]" (48).

Each of these minor details, woven so subtly they pass as atmosphere, insist that life prevails, no matter how intense the violence or how unmatched an oppressor may seem. The bird imagery also comes to mind during the second part of the book, as a point of comparison with our narrator's life experience which is in its essence defined by borders (so much so that they are in her head, too).

The second part of the book is so cleverly interwoven with the first, in catastrophic ways that are only apparent once it is too late to turn back. From the beginning we have a parallel in the image of the dog howling, but little by little, as our narrator gets closer to the origin of the story she investigates, details resurface from the first part of the book. Often, these minor details even appear with their wording nearly unchanged from the way they initially appeared. Compare, for example, "carrying a hose wrapped around his arm in equal-sized rings" (30) and "on the sand lies a hose, neatly running from one tree to the next and coiled in equal-sized rings around each trunk" (96). Or "thick clouds of sand sprung from underneath the vehicle's tyres, rose up and followed after them, completely obscuring the view behind" (10), compared to this passage from part 2: "Despite how cautiously I'm driving, thick clouds of dust rise up and swiftly form a halo that obscures the scene behind me" (105).

Through the minor details of our narrator's journey, we realise, in a moment of dramatic irony, that the story she is chasing is one she is already recreating. Her search turns her into a living participant of the story, includes her in ways that go beyond mere research. The truth lies not necessarily in the specific answers of what had happened, but in the shared lived experience between her and the girl from part 1. By the time we follow this logic to its inevitable conclusion, it is much too late.

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martinaib's review

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challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

Gorgeous writing, changing in the two parts of the book to match the psychology of the main character and convey rightly the atmosphere and landscape they are facing.
I have truly loved the perspective on war and the attempt to transmit a message for peace and humanity which shall prevail.
That said, this was not at all an easy read. The humiliation and rape felt too real and I hardly got through the first part. Here is also one of the things which I just couldn’t grasp

which is why the commander felt somehow justified in raping the girl and because she was unconscious, she continued to recognise him as a potential saviour when being raped by others.

Additionally, some of the bridges made between the two parts of the book felt way to obvious and easy and for my personal taste it was a bit too much. But this is a me thing, because I really don’t like being held by the hand as a reader.

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jokf's review

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Really strong beginning and ending! But the midle of the book was i little hard to get through:/ I would still definetly recommend this book, if youre interested in learning about palestine. Its a great book, just little slow<3

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kestrel_of_the_pages's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Short but difficult read.

The first half follows the point of view from a commanding officer of the Israeli occupying army a year after the Nakba, 1949, and the second half takes place in what feels like early 2000's and follows a Palestinian reporter trying to solve a mystery caused by said CO.

The commanding officer is heinous. The deeds depicted are absolutely atrocious and true to what many Bedouin, Arab, Palestinian women of the time faced. I was physically ill through most of the two stories and the end had me in furious tears. It was so difficult to read knowing this is rooted in reality, the weight of the importance is tangible despite the size of this novella.

A relentlessly true story that is approachable enough to get people to read the daily reality Palestinians have been subjected to.

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