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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
emotional
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:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Setting en verhaal zijn prachtig, en een goed beeld van hoe het Palestijnse volk lijdt onder de bezetting. Aan de andere kant zijn de dialogen vaak houterig, en voelt het boek op meerdere punten wat onaf
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
art and poetry and memory are all information in their own right. you cannot kill that!!!!
very excited to revisit this after i actually read hamlet.
very excited to revisit this after i actually read hamlet.
emotional
reflective
"Our trip to meet him in Bethlehem in the summer of 1994 remained a significant memory for me, pregnant with meaning and revelation, largely because it was my first contact with a very particular range of emotion – and now I hated myself for treating experience like this, like a colour palette. The vanished possibility of Rashid’s life was appalling. It shoved me violently from the centre of my world to its edges. What I thought had happened was totally wrong, it was clashing against the reality, which had carried on without me, without my awareness. Or, rather, had not carried on at all. There was I, taking it for granted that his life had kept on going, when in fact I’d met him at the end of it. There had been no thereafter."
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
All I can say is WOW. Such a powerful portrait of identity; cultural, gender, and artistic. I need to read more from Isabella Hammad immediately
3.5 stars. This isn’t a bad book, and I appreciate it for the light it sheds on the current issues in Palestine/Israel.
However.
It lacked the emotional impact I was hoping it would deliver. It has its moments, snippets and vignettes like with Rashid and the homeless student and certainly the ending. But the main character we follow is Sonia and she bounces back and forth between memories and present day and the memories weren’t really related to the play or the current day story so it didn’t always feel cohesive to me (and to be frank, I couldn’t have cared less about Harry…) Her feelings on Palestine were frustratingly distant. And maybe the author intended it that way and that’s fine, I guess it’s just not what I was expecting.
Additionally, the ending is ambiguous. So I’m left unsure what to think, a little bit empty. It’s like the author backed out of concluding the story to leave me with a clever line. An epilogue might have helped.
So I don’t know. Not sorry to have read it I guess even if it’s not a favorite. The audio version was well done and I really liked the narrator.
However.
It lacked the emotional impact I was hoping it would deliver. It has its moments, snippets and vignettes like with Rashid and the homeless student and certainly the ending. But the main character we follow is Sonia and she bounces back and forth between memories and present day and the memories weren’t really related to the play or the current day story so it didn’t always feel cohesive to me (and to be frank, I couldn’t have cared less about Harry…) Her feelings on Palestine were frustratingly distant. And maybe the author intended it that way and that’s fine, I guess it’s just not what I was expecting.
Additionally, the ending is ambiguous. So I’m left unsure what to think, a little bit empty. It’s like the author backed out of concluding the story to leave me with a clever line. An epilogue might have helped.
So I don’t know. Not sorry to have read it I guess even if it’s not a favorite. The audio version was well done and I really liked the narrator.