Reviews with content warning for Rape - Minor Detail

When they said minor detail they meant it. Every minor detail that could be shared is which made it feel like a slow read. It is the most literary fiction book I’ve ever read.

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crcrane's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

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

4.0

Important read but a very heavy topic

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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4.25

Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, I got trapped without even realizing it in the minor details of this story. The mundanity of this story is the great genius of this book and yet also the thing that makes it hard to read. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Horror upon horror.
While I was reading the first section, I wanted so badly to get past it, and onto the next section, but as soon as I did, I found myself retracing the story’s steps, wanting to go back to check the minor details, to compare them over and over again. The experience was deeply harrowing, and yet, I think I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.

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maria_fr's review against another edition

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dark reflective medium-paced

4.0

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rachela_7's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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hammerhead69's review against another edition

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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!

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carojust's review against another edition

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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.

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anniereads221's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad

5.0

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