Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

49 reviews

careinthelibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

The network of pain throughout this family, each responding in a different way to dispossession (of land, of culture, of family) and death. Mornings in Jenin is a gruelling read that made my heart ache and never let up, even to the last page. But it's also full of tender moments between these loving and hopeful characters and beautiful writing that gives a sweet reprieve from the dark. Careful, considered language that makes the ache of losses deeper and more impactful.
A truly outstanding debut, I will continue my journey through Susan Abulhawa's writing knowing I'm in the hands of a talented author. I'm struck by the years of apartheid covered in this novel and its echoes in the present day genocide of Gazans and continued oppression of Palestinians in their homelands and beyond. Free Palestine.

"Love, David
... Love, Ismael"💔🇵🇸

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Violence, Islamophobia, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, and Blood

cerilouisereads's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Mental illness, Torture, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and War

poisoned_icecream's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Death of parent, Murder, and Colonisation

morybaby's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and War

fkshg8465's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

So much sadness in this book. I am admittedly anti Zionist. I cannot fathom the entitlement they feel they have based on the writings of men long gone. Neither can i fathom the pain that brought them back. But it seems they too cannot fathom the pain they are rendering on people undeserving of it. This book seems to reinforce all of that for me - people behaving badly, people trying to survive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

elsaschuster's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad fast-paced

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

5.0

Especially read in the context of late 2023, this book breaks my heart. This isn’t ancient history, this is now. 

Free Palestine 🍉🇵🇸

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Death of parent, Colonisation, and War

purely_romantic's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

CWs at the end.

I finished this book minutes before writing this review so forgive me if this is not as polished, nor as coherent. A stream of consciousness is perhaps more appropriate because I cannot review *Mornings in Jenin* as if style and plot and narrative structure were at the forefront of my mind. I do not care about technicalities because I can only speak about how this made me feel. About how I am crying even as I write this, and my grief for an entire people is too large for words, too large for my body. 

Language fails me at this moment as I try to describe what reading this book at this particular moment in time feels like. At some points, the images described on the page of people wailing at the sight of their dead families, mothers crying over their children’s corpses, children being shot as they played were blurring with the real footage I see every day. There is no separation of fact from fiction, only a grim, bleak reality of endless grief and rage. 

I cannot care about literary analysis while reading this because to do so is to create a cognitive distance entrenched in me by Western academic disciplines that requires I observe from afar. I reject that practice at this moment. While I have in no way experienced these levels of pain and fear, there is a generational sense memory I carry in my bones that knows colonial violence, that knows how a heart can break when my land is ravaged, that feels like shattering when my people are hurting. Through these four generations of characters, each who experiences the same violence over and over again, Abulhawa creates the sense of an endless cycle of occupation, of stolen land and dreams, a never-ending nightmare of lost loved ones and homes, with only smatterings of reprieves that could be pierced by a bullet, by a bomb at any moment. Yehya’s pain was Hasan’s pain was Dalia’s pain was Yousef’s pain was Amal’s pain was my pain. It should be all our pain to watch other human beings suffer like this. 

And yet, through all this horror, my god did I feel the characters’ unceasing pride and love for their country. The fondness for their homes, the laughter and joy at being around family, the intricacies of large, community-based cultures that I recognize in my own society, shone through like a beacon. The cheeky pranks of children, the matchmaking relatives, the sounds of older family members’ never-ending advice and instructions knitted the fabric of ancient traditions and customs, livelihoods and sacred love for their home. I am so grateful I was allowed to look into these moments of joy and endurance, that I see still in the faces of the adults and children of Ga*a. 

Saying I’m glad this book exists feels strange because these horrors should have never happened. But I am. I am privileged to know the people of Pa*est*ne through the journeys of these characters, to find moments of connection and to bear witness to their past and present. I pray for a day when writers and artists need only write of their love for their olive trees and orange trees, of the sea and their bustling cities, of their families and the nuances of Arab culture, and don’t have to beg for the world to see them.

CWs: war; gen*ci*e; eth*ic clean*ing; injury and death in graphic detail; forced exile and displacements; grief; mentions of tor*ure, assault and beatings; kidnapping and child abduction; oppression, racism and xenophobia and Islamaphobia

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

katharina90's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

A heartbreaking, powerful, beautifully written book about the Palestinian experience and the world's indifference to and complicity in past and present atrocities committed against the Palestinian people.

"How does one live in a world that turns away from such injustice for so long? Is this what it means to be Palestinian, Mother?"

"For if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Colonisation

Moderate: Confinement and Torture

Minor: Alcoholism and Rape

emzireads's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Genocide, Grief, Death of parent, and Colonisation

readwmichelle's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Violence, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and War

Moderate: Alcoholism, Gun violence, Torture, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual violence