A review by hollyd19
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I don’t really have words for this remarkable book. Abulhawa weaves an engaging story complete with complex characters and gorgeous language. Readers are led through the narrative by Nahr who is recounting her life from an Israeli solitary confinement cell dubbed “The Cube.” Starting from her teenager years as the daughter of Palestinian refugees in Kuwait, Nahr makes impossible life choices in order to stay afloat in a culture that regularly displaces and devalues people with her background. Forced to relocate after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she moves through life in Jordan and then eventually back to Palestine. All the while, Nahr slowly becomes more revolutionary, protective of her Palestinian heritage and her family’s desire to freely return to their homeland. 

Nahr is fiery and determined, complicated but relatable. Her relationships are intricately woven and believable. Further, Abulhawa writes with a commitment to emotional candor that gives the whole book a deep resonance that leaves you feeling both filled and emptied all at once.

On top of the affective, resonate writing and powerful characters, the story also serves as an education about a part of the world that is regularly flattened into a distant, violent abstract. I am disappointed at how little I knew about the Palestinian experience and the nuances of the Middle East. The book is prefaced with a thorough glossary which was so helpful.

I’ll wrap up with a quotation from the book that epitomizes to me both the emotional tenor and the beautiful writing style of the novel: “Can something expected still be a surprise? We knew that Israelis were especially menacing during the harvest season. They know olives have been the mainstay and centerpieces of our social, economic, and cultural presence for millennia, and it infuriated them — still does — to watch the unbroken continuity of our indigenous traditions. So they came with their big guns, and the colonial logic of interlopers about cannot abide our presence or our joy.”
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