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makaylabrown's review against another edition
2.0
i wanted to enjoy this because i picked it up at a random book warehouse, the first few pages seemed nice so i decided to stick with it but this was so unenjoyable and i think i might’ve had a different outlook on it if i wasn’t trying to educate myself more on the issues between palestine and israel but to me this really just felt like a forbidden love affair. long story short, left a really bad taste in my mouth having read it in the middle of educating myself on this crisis.
meshiz's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
ameliez's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: War and Racism
alexisrt's review against another edition
5.0
Israeli Liat and Palestinian Hilmi meet in New York, neutral ground, in 2001 and fall in love. Writing a political novel is a tricky balancing act, especially one in which the main characters are, in some sense, a personification of the political. Characters in fiction must also be people, not representations that exist to give speeches. Although there are a couple of explicit conversations about the conflict, most of the politics here are delicately drawn. Everything in their lives is political, from Liat's army service, to food, to the very languages they speak (they communicate in English; some of Hilmi's Arabic is rendered as it would have been in the Hebrew original, translated in footnotes).
There is no great resolution here, no grand statements. Their relationship is both wonderful and incredibly, impossibly sad. Rabinyan doesn't stake out a position on the conflict; she does, however, try to shrink it to a complex miniature.
There is no great resolution here, no grand statements. Their relationship is both wonderful and incredibly, impossibly sad. Rabinyan doesn't stake out a position on the conflict; she does, however, try to shrink it to a complex miniature.
bibliocurl's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
skylarkochava's review against another edition
4.0
Great! ...until the ending. Like a negative deus ex machina, all wrapped up so that there are no lingering questions about what happened for the rest of their lives. Maybe that’s nice in some books, but I found it really unsatisfying here. Too convenient, especially for a book that revels in mental and emotional discomfort (in a pretty positive challenging way) up to that point.
kcotsira's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
sjgrodsky's review against another edition
4.0
Read for the Hadassah book club. And then, the night before the book club meeting on Tuesday, I tripped and injured my left leg and knee. Awful pain Monday night, and still too painful to even think about attending the meeting on Tuesday night. Not even on Zoom.
Very sorry I missed the discussion.
Well written, good concept, but I didn’t find the love interest character, Hilma, attractive. Disorganized, poor planner, and smoked. Yeech! Yes, I know I lived with Don Weeda for almost a year, and that he was a smoker. Somehow, I didn’t mind the smell when I was 21 years old. Can’t understand now how i stood it.
Back to the book. Because I didn’t find Hilma attractive, I couldn’t sympathize fully with the protagonist’s conflict.
Or maybe I’m just too old to understand the passion of love among those of disparate backgrounds. A dog can fall in love with a fish, as Tevye says, but where would they live? Or, in a more literate example, Romeo and Juliet were beautiful together, but they both died in the end.
Finally, I agree with the critic who said that the author took the easy way out when seeking for a resolution. Killing off Hilma saves the protagonist from having to make the tough choices she avoids from page 1. You know the protagonist will grieve for awhile, dream of what might have been. Then she’ll marry another sabra and settle in the Tel Aviv suburbs.
Very sorry I missed the discussion.
Well written, good concept, but I didn’t find the love interest character, Hilma, attractive. Disorganized, poor planner, and smoked. Yeech! Yes, I know I lived with Don Weeda for almost a year, and that he was a smoker. Somehow, I didn’t mind the smell when I was 21 years old. Can’t understand now how i stood it.
Back to the book. Because I didn’t find Hilma attractive, I couldn’t sympathize fully with the protagonist’s conflict.
Or maybe I’m just too old to understand the passion of love among those of disparate backgrounds. A dog can fall in love with a fish, as Tevye says, but where would they live? Or, in a more literate example, Romeo and Juliet were beautiful together, but they both died in the end.
Finally, I agree with the critic who said that the author took the easy way out when seeking for a resolution. Killing off Hilma saves the protagonist from having to make the tough choices she avoids from page 1. You know the protagonist will grieve for awhile, dream of what might have been. Then she’ll marry another sabra and settle in the Tel Aviv suburbs.
dinamakan's review against another edition
2.0
When I see the blurb, I was expecting a tragic love story set in Palestine/Israel, since the main characters are from Israel and Palestine. I was wrong. The story is set in the US in 2003 (I assume it's after 9/11 event), so the prejudice among Arabs/Muslims were bigger than any other races/nationality/religion believers. So, I can say that the challenge is more visible for Hilmi rather than Liat.
The love story is not balanced, since Hilmi introduced Liat to his friends and family, while Liat tries hard to hide their relationship from her family and the Jewish/Israeli community. Secondly, although there are some lines that show the couple grow up with their Middle Eastern environment and culture, I didn't really see it from how they live their love life. They have sex, get drunk, and take weed, like typical "love life" stories.
The love story is not balanced, since Hilmi introduced Liat to his friends and family, while Liat tries hard to hide their relationship from her family and the Jewish/Israeli community. Secondly, although there are some lines that show the couple grow up with their Middle Eastern environment and culture, I didn't really see it from how they live their love life. They have sex, get drunk, and take weed, like typical "love life" stories.
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
All the Rivers is the title given to the English translation of a novel by Israeli author Dorit Rabinyan which was banned from Israeli schools. It's the story of a relationship that forms between an Israeli translator working in New York on a temporary basis and a Palestinian artist. The story is interesting, but unremarkable except for their heritages. Liat reacts by hiding the relationship from her family and living under a fear of being seen by someone from back home whenever they are together in public, a fear that extends to being seen by anyone from Israel. Hilmi is unafraid of their relationship and his frustration comes from being sent out of the room when her parents call, even as his insistence in including Liat in an evening meal when his brother visits from Ramallah results in an uncomfortable evening for everyone.
This book did give me an insight into how intractable the division between the Israelis and the Palestinians is, even as Hilmi remains optimistic about the future. They both live with the damage the long conflict has done to them, creating areas where they can't communicate. This isn't a trite story of love conquering all, and even when they are together in New York, their relationship is a very real one. In the end, Rabinyan fails to stick the landing, writing an ending that carefully skirts around any hard decisions on the part of Hilmi and Liat, and one that also avoids making any sort of meaningful comment on Israeli-Palestinian relations. I'm left wondering if this careful circling around of the issues still resulted in All the Rivers being viewed as controversial, what would have happened had Rabinyan refused to allow her characters an easy way out?
This book did give me an insight into how intractable the division between the Israelis and the Palestinians is, even as Hilmi remains optimistic about the future. They both live with the damage the long conflict has done to them, creating areas where they can't communicate. This isn't a trite story of love conquering all, and even when they are together in New York, their relationship is a very real one. In the end, Rabinyan fails to stick the landing, writing an ending that carefully skirts around any hard decisions on the part of Hilmi and Liat, and one that also avoids making any sort of meaningful comment on Israeli-Palestinian relations. I'm left wondering if this careful circling around of the issues still resulted in All the Rivers being viewed as controversial, what would have happened had Rabinyan refused to allow her characters an easy way out?