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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
This made me feel so many emotions that it's hard to narrow it down to just one. It's a novel I think everyone should read, especially given the ongoing devastation and genocide in Gaza. This book isn't afraid to ask tough questions about Palestine/Israel's existence as it currently is, or explore the generational pain of Palestinians both inside and out of Israel. If you're able, I highly recommend you read this book, but fair trigger warning on what is explored here. Though the characters are fictional, the story is ever-relevant, and now more than ever we must be uplifting Palestinian voices and telling their stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Rape, Suicide, Violence
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
A brilliant idea which kind of buckles under its own weight, although I like the small-scale stories being told within such a world changing event. I think an idea such as this would take hundreds upon hundreds of pages to truly do justice, and this one (barely 250) is just not enough - especially when so many are diary entries and articles. The moments that aren't, however, are fantastic.
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5, rounded up to 4.
When I walk in Palestine I feel that am walking on corpses. The images of multitudes of people escaping in terror are always on my mind. All my grandparents had died, except for you. Do we inhale the decomposed corpses? What are we going to do with all this sorrow? How can we start anew? What will we do with Palestine? I, too, am tired. But whenever I wake up in the morning, I remember you and smile. And I say, just as you used to, “God will ease things.”'
Do you know what it means to spend your life waiting? Waiting for those who left to return? You wait your whole life and keep talking about the past. But the past grows bigger and devours you. An entire people, those who stayed, seem mad when they talk about all that was before. As if what was wasn’t, or it was a world that only existed in their imagination. Jaffa. Jaffa is a name that pains me. I curse it every day, because I still love it. Can you spit at what you love? Yes, because this love kills you.
I recall some stories from your memory. The stories I read, heard, or the ones you/I made up, when you were tired. The most striking stories are the ones we make up. They are the most astounding and horrifying. What we live is truncated. Even what I lived is truncated in my memory. As if my memory is a glass house, full of cracks that are like wrinkles, but it’s still standing. We can see through it, but something is muddled. “Muddled” doesn’t mean a hazy view, or that both points of view are equal. These are the lies of those who write in the white books that we are forced to read. It is muddled because the pain is too great for us to endure memory. So we store it in a black box inside our heads and hearts, but it pains us and gnaws at us from within. And we rust, day after day. Yes, rust. I wonder at times why I feel all this sadness. Where does it come from? I realize soon thereafter: your memory is a burden that pains me. I feel so lonely in Jaffa.
I had to tell their stories to pass in school and college. That’s why I remember them like I remember my ID number. I know it by heart and can recite it any minute. I memorized their stories and their white dreams about this place so as to pass exams. But I carved my stories, yours, and those of others who are like us, inside me. We inherit memory the way we inherit the color of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Your memory pains me.
You learned to love Jaffa even when it was cruel and you taught me that love. You used to say that Jaffans are sea people and merchants. They acclimate no matter where they go or stay, like shore people. You were alone in Jaffa, but you loved it like you loved a man madly.
The ghosts of the dead will continue to haunt, demanding justice and recognition, and the living will write and remember.
When I walk in Palestine I feel that am walking on corpses. The images of multitudes of people escaping in terror are always on my mind. All my grandparents had died, except for you. Do we inhale the decomposed corpses? What are we going to do with all this sorrow? How can we start anew? What will we do with Palestine? I, too, am tired. But whenever I wake up in the morning, I remember you and smile. And I say, just as you used to, “God will ease things.”'
Do you know what it means to spend your life waiting? Waiting for those who left to return? You wait your whole life and keep talking about the past. But the past grows bigger and devours you. An entire people, those who stayed, seem mad when they talk about all that was before. As if what was wasn’t, or it was a world that only existed in their imagination. Jaffa. Jaffa is a name that pains me. I curse it every day, because I still love it. Can you spit at what you love? Yes, because this love kills you.
I recall some stories from your memory. The stories I read, heard, or the ones you/I made up, when you were tired. The most striking stories are the ones we make up. They are the most astounding and horrifying. What we live is truncated. Even what I lived is truncated in my memory. As if my memory is a glass house, full of cracks that are like wrinkles, but it’s still standing. We can see through it, but something is muddled. “Muddled” doesn’t mean a hazy view, or that both points of view are equal. These are the lies of those who write in the white books that we are forced to read. It is muddled because the pain is too great for us to endure memory. So we store it in a black box inside our heads and hearts, but it pains us and gnaws at us from within. And we rust, day after day. Yes, rust. I wonder at times why I feel all this sadness. Where does it come from? I realize soon thereafter: your memory is a burden that pains me. I feel so lonely in Jaffa.
I had to tell their stories to pass in school and college. That’s why I remember them like I remember my ID number. I know it by heart and can recite it any minute. I memorized their stories and their white dreams about this place so as to pass exams. But I carved my stories, yours, and those of others who are like us, inside me. We inherit memory the way we inherit the color of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Your memory pains me.
You learned to love Jaffa even when it was cruel and you taught me that love. You used to say that Jaffans are sea people and merchants. They acclimate no matter where they go or stay, like shore people. You were alone in Jaffa, but you loved it like you loved a man madly.
Spoiler
The old have died, but the young have not forgotten and will not forget—this is what Alaa demonstrates. His red notebook, like the novel’s end, remains open.The ghosts of the dead will continue to haunt, demanding justice and recognition, and the living will write and remember.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated