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coopireads8's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This book is one of the many Palestinian voices that the world needs to urgently listen during this genocide. Calling this book as “anti-Semitic” is proof of the Palestinian erasure and ethnic cleansing.
Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Colonisation, and War
mreadsbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Rape, Torture, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Colonisation, and War
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual assault, and Violence
Minor: Animal cruelty and Vomit
lucymcgoosey's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Rape, Colonisation, and War
amberinpieces's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Blood
dafni's review
5.0
Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Rape, and Colonisation
Moderate: Gun violence and War
colormecaro's review against another edition
5.0
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 🇵🇸
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
sophiesmallhands's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Police brutality
sam8834's review against another edition
4.0
"The car cuts through the landscape at high speed. The road is nearly perfectly straight, but even so, I keep glancing at the Israeli map unfurled across the seat next to me, fearing that I may get lost in the folds of a scene which fills me with a great feeling of alienation, seeing all the changes that have befallen it. It's been a long time since I've passed through here, and wherever I look, all the changes constantly reassert the absence of anything Palestinian: the names of cities and villages on road signs, billboards written in Hebrew, new buildings, even vast fields abutting the horizon on my left and right. After a disappearance, that's when the fly returns to hover over the painting."
I can't remember the last time I read a novella that does as much as Minor Detail does. In a way, it's a collection of minor details, taking place over two halves, that coalesce around major themes, like war, colonialism, and violence. The first half is set in 1949, a year after the Nakba (which Israelis refer to as the War of Independence), in which ~700,000 Palestinians were displaced. This part details an Israeli troop's murdering of an entire encampment, capture, rape, and murder of a Palestinian teenager. The second half, set in the present day, follows a woman who discovers this story and becomes a bit obsessed with finding out more, partly because the event occurred exactly 25 years before she was born.
The small details in this symbolize or are layered over the larger war efforts. An Israeli commander has a spider bite that festers, much in the way the troop's hatred spurs them to go from having the teenager work in the kitchen to raping and killing her instead. Her hair is doused in gasoline to combat headlice, while in the present-day narrative, the narrator spills gasoline on herself when filling up her car. The Palestinian girl's life is erased as she is buried in the desert, and again, as the present-day narrator hits roadblock after roadblock when trying to uncover information about her. Hard, as well, not to think of the parallels to western media's erasure of the current genocide taking place in Gaza.
Graphic: Genocide, Violence, Colonisation, and War
Moderate: Rape and Murder
bo0kf4n2's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Graphic: Rape and Colonisation
Moderate: Gun violence
artemy_se's review against another edition
- 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
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