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abbeysullivan96 's review for:
Against the Loveless World
by Susan Abulhawa
I did the first couple books of this as an audiobook and I do NOT recommend. I didn't like the audio narrator, and it made me hate almost all the characters right off the bat because she read them with such a deadpan and, in the case of Um-Buraq, an incredibly annoying nasally voice. When I switched to regular reading my whole perspective changed, and the book was much more enjoyable.
I spent a good part of the beginning of this book not sure how I felt about Nahr. She explicitly sneers at "the Jews", and laughs about a woman's grandparents being in the holocaust. She worships Sadaam Hussein. It made me so uncomfortable I wasn't sure if I liked her or the book at all.
But I pressed on, and felt grateful that the book wasn't presenting us with a squeaky-clean, perfect heroine. These elements aren't random, they're supposed to make us uncomfortable. Nahr is a full, flawed human being, and that's one of the things that floored me about this book. ALL of the characters (that matter), are fully, richly developed with astounding arcs. Whether or not you flinch
at these aspects of her character, she does not deserve what happens to her. And I think that's the point.
Once Nahr makes it to Palestine after a lifetime of displacement, I couldn't put the book down. It's shocking, as someone still learning about this, what Palestinians live with daily. The fear of death, imprisonment without trial, constant checkpoints, harassment, having your home flat-out stolen, or starved of water, the list goes on.
Sweeping historical narratives like this always make me so emotional in the end. You spend a whole lifetime with these characters, and then when they're out of your life, it feels like something is missing. That's the hallmark of a great story, and even better storytelling.
4/5!
I spent a good part of the beginning of this book not sure how I felt about Nahr. She explicitly sneers at "the Jews", and laughs about a woman's grandparents being in the holocaust. She worships Sadaam Hussein. It made me so uncomfortable I wasn't sure if I liked her or the book at all.
But I pressed on, and felt grateful that the book wasn't presenting us with a squeaky-clean, perfect heroine. These elements aren't random, they're supposed to make us uncomfortable. Nahr is a full, flawed human being, and that's one of the things that floored me about this book. ALL of the characters (that matter), are fully, richly developed with astounding arcs. Whether or not you flinch
at these aspects of her character, she does not deserve what happens to her. And I think that's the point.
Once Nahr makes it to Palestine after a lifetime of displacement, I couldn't put the book down. It's shocking, as someone still learning about this, what Palestinians live with daily. The fear of death, imprisonment without trial, constant checkpoints, harassment, having your home flat-out stolen, or starved of water, the list goes on.
Sweeping historical narratives like this always make me so emotional in the end. You spend a whole lifetime with these characters, and then when they're out of your life, it feels like something is missing. That's the hallmark of a great story, and even better storytelling.
4/5!