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kestrel_of_the_pages's review
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation
readbykatherine's review against another edition
dark
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? No
5.0
I find it very hard to rate this book because while Minor Detail is technically a work of fiction, it is based off the hundreds of real life Palestinian experiences of unrelenting violence at the hands of the Israeli government and military (IOF).
Even though I will probably never read this book againthe rape that happened in the first part of the book was awful and the author did not shy away from the violence and pure evilness of the act. I have to credit Adania Shibli (with five stars) for writing a book that thoroughly shook me to my core.
Even though I will probably never read this book again
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Rape, and Murder
Moderate: Hate crime, Racism, Torture, Violence, Islamophobia, Grief, Medical trauma, Colonisation, and War
sadriceballs's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Violence, Xenophobia, and War
dafni's review
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Rape, and Colonisation
Moderate: Gun violence and War
colormecaro's review against another edition
5.0
Not a single detail in this book is minor.
Even if the narrator in the second half of the book says it is. Details like being used to bombings and shelling and opening a window to avoid it shattering in an explosion but being upset about the dust. Not minor.
🇵🇸 Free Palestine 🇵🇸
Even if the narrator in the second half of the book says it is. Details like being used to bombings and shelling and opening a window to avoid it shattering in an explosion but being upset about the dust. Not minor.
🇵🇸 Free Palestine 🇵🇸
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Hate crime, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
artemy_se's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
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? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Islamophobia
hammerhead69's review
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
I was stuck between giving this book 5 stars or 1. Fantastic writing but the ending had me screaming!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Vomit, Islamophobia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
carojust's review
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Adania Shibli shows us the darkest side of humanity, a reality we can't ignore, in painfully beautiful and stark writing.
The first half feels blurry, sweltering, full of smells and you feel yourself fearing, unsure what this character will do. He ends up doing the worst, and you see that you're witnessing hell.
The second half is a complete character, POV, timeline and tone shift, told through an autistic-leaning narrator who describes, in complete detail, her world as a Palestinian in recent years. With no sense of emotion, she talks about bombings that she works and sleeps through. We follow her as she retraces the events from the first half.
Shibli artfully weaves details and symbolism from both timelines into each other. It has a heartstopping effect, when you see that things haven't changed. The ending emphasizes this.
Please read this book.
The first half feels blurry, sweltering, full of smells and you feel yourself fearing, unsure what this character will do. He ends up doing the worst, and you see that you're witnessing hell.
The second half is a complete character, POV, timeline and tone shift, told through an autistic-leaning narrator who describes, in complete detail, her world as a Palestinian in recent years. With no sense of emotion, she talks about bombings that she works and sleeps through. We follow her as she retraces the events from the first half.
Shibli artfully weaves details and symbolism from both timelines into each other. It has a heartstopping effect, when you see that things haven't changed. The ending emphasizes this.
Please read this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Genocide, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Vomit, Kidnapping, War, and Injury/Injury detail
akrreads's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Islamophobia, Colonisation, and War
readingpicnic's review
4.5
I've had to sit with this book for a few days after finishing it so that I could try to do it justice in a review. The first half of the book centers around the subject of interest in the latter half of the book, the Palestinian girl who was gang-r*ped by Israeli soldiers and then murdered. The main character in the latter half of the book, a journalist, becomes interested in the girl's story after realizing that her death date was exactly 25 years before the MC's birth date, which caught her eye and generated a need to know more about this girl. The two parts of the book connect in pieces that the MC doesn't even realize because she doesn't have access to the information from the first half of the book, and it's essentially lost knowledge/history. She wishes to feel some connection to the girl who died while not realizing that some of her actions and sensory experiences are replicating what the girl went through, and this strong desire for connection coupled with the not knowing the connections do exist really devastated me. Some examples I wrote down were the dog howling/barking haunting the MC, and the dog also seemed to be a ghost at one point on page 94? There's also a scene on page 92 where the MC spills gasoline on herself after saying that she wishes she could stay in the area longer to get a clue as to what the girl endured, even though her reeking of gasoline for the remainder of the book is part of what the girl endured at the hands of the soldiers. In the first half of the book, the parts where the main soldier in charge was frantically crushing every bug in his room every night and was losing his mind a bit also fucked me up a lot. The imagery of barriers, both physical and metaphorical was very powerful in this book, especially with the way the MC worried over them in every interaction. One quote that really stuck out to me was "By the way, I hope I didn't cause any awkwardness when I mentioned the incident with the soldier, or the checkpoint, or when I reveal that we are living under occupation here" (56). I saw a TikTok explaining greenwashing before reading this book, and I'm really glad that I went into it with that context since I saw it come up again and again with mentions of Canada Park and Israeli soldiers saying that they were going to revitalize the land because Palestinians didn't know/didn't care to take care of it (not fucking true btw).
The last few pages of the book felt so aimless and wandering as the MC realizes that she truly cannot find the lost history of the girl and that her journey cannot have a satisfying ending because of all the barriers that prevent her from this knowledge. The ending of the book was shocking, but also not shocking due to the violence of this book and the almost expected violence by Israeli soldiers. The only part of this book that I wasn't a huge fan of was how it's written with every single action spelled out if that makes sense. Like, if a character got out of a vehicle, then every single part of that action was detailed from start to finish. I'm sure there's a reason for this method of storytelling, but maybe I can't see what it is in relation to the overarching themes of the book right now. Overall, this is such a necessary read.
Also, side note, I saw that someone added this to the Autistic Reads Challenge, and I agree that I was contemplating while reading this whether the main character of the second half was autistic and/or neurodivergent due to her thought processes, but I wasn't sure whether that was intentional on the author's part. I hesitate because she may process the world in these ways and think in these ways due to trauma and the circumstances in which she lives under occupation and has to be on high alert and think through interactions carefully, but acquired neurodivergence and disabilities due to trauma are valid, so I'm on the edge with this.
The last few pages of the book felt so aimless and wandering as the MC realizes that she truly cannot find the lost history of the girl and that her journey cannot have a satisfying ending because of all the barriers that prevent her from this knowledge. The ending of the book was shocking, but also not shocking due to the violence of this book and the almost expected violence by Israeli soldiers. The only part of this book that I wasn't a huge fan of was how it's written with every single action spelled out if that makes sense. Like, if a character got out of a vehicle, then every single part of that action was detailed from start to finish. I'm sure there's a reason for this method of storytelling, but maybe I can't see what it is in relation to the overarching themes of the book right now. Overall, this is such a necessary read.
Also, side note, I saw that someone added this to the Autistic Reads Challenge, and I agree that I was contemplating while reading this whether the main character of the second half was autistic and/or neurodivergent due to her thought processes, but I wasn't sure whether that was intentional on the author's part. I hesitate because she may process the world in these ways and think in these ways due to trauma and the circumstances in which she lives under occupation and has to be on high alert and think through interactions carefully, but acquired neurodivergence and disabilities due to trauma are valid, so I'm on the edge with this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Murder, and War