Historical fiction. Enjoyed. Recommend.
The story and history are told through the characters’ actions, not their thoughts and feelings. The characters don’t have a lot of agency and aren’t particularly thoughtful about the history and politics of their times. The main characters are orphans.
There is a little insight into German and British colonizations and wars, and none into any resistance movements. The main characters seem passively involved in their activities. The woman character is given a typical woman’s actions (household servant, sister, mother) and little agency, as if she was included to create the romantic plot that makes the book palatable for readers. I remember now why I had stopped reading men authors.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

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adventurous reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Believable main character and plot. Well written murder mystery.

In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard

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adventurous sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The world building is cool! The plot is all right. I read it for the dragon character and queer themes. The magic in the story is done by letters and words. I would have liked more of this magic.
The writing needed editing. Why didn’t somebody edit this book? I agree with other reviewers about telling rather than showing, and repetition, “there’s no time.”

State of War: A Novel of Life in the Philippines by Ninotchka Rosca

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The author, Rosca, takes us across 400 years of history in the Philippines through 3 characters.
The primary plot of the entire book is 3 friends at a weekend festival, where they intend to enjoy themselves and escape the politics of the day. The party is fun. The politics of the day, not so much.
The author takes us through the characters' immediate past, a 1980's view of corruption, rape, torture, and kidnapping under the Marco's regime.
Then, in a middle "book," we see hundreds of years of our characters' lineages and the history that brought them into the present politics, which have inescapably followed them to the festival and determined their destinies.
Some people compare Ninotchka Rosca's writing to that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the analogy is appropriate. I looked for a genealogical map of the characters' families at the front and back of the book and, finding none, re-read a few sections to see whose great grandparents shared histories.
The book ends with revelations and truths of the present day, as the festival ends, and a final few pages that serve as an epilogue. It is a clean ending, worthy of the entire book.
The plot and characters were not predictable; many of the embedded stories felt all too realistic, based on the actual history of this archipelago, which represents, horrifyingly, 400 years of life in a _State of War due to colonization, Christian hegemony, inequalities, and geopolitics.

Content Warnings

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

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adventurous challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Two stories
Minor Detail by Adiana Shibli

A memorable and quick read that is based on documented histories, including Ben-Gurion's own journal entries that documented Jewish-led massacres and mass rapes of non-Jewish Palestinians on behalf of the founding of the State of Israel after the UN Declaration of the two nation-states: Israel and Palestine in 1948.

The first half of the book takes place in 1949, during the Nakba, when Jewish militias are massacring Palestinians so that the new State of Israel can be created as a place for mostly European Jewish immigrants. The main character, who is not accustomed to the Negev desert, could be from anywhere else, but is definitely not indigenous to the land. The story covers a few days of his life that features the kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of a Beduin girl, whose people they massacre first. It is well-written, if horribly and intentionally mundane and factual.

The second half takes place in modern times and reads as if it were a true story. The main character is an Arab Palestinian woman from Ramallah who is on the autism spectrum. -- Have you ever read a story in which the main character was autistic in some way? It could be new to you. -- She learns of the 1949 mass rape and wants to corroborate it by visiting the location of this particular war crime. This local travel for her, comparably covering just a few days of her life, is complicated because her Palestinian identity restricts her travel and her worth and dignity under Israeli Apartheid. The writing shows her dehumanization through the plot, again mundane and factual.

... We never learn if she is Muslim or Christian or Beduin.

Do view content warnings posted by others. From another post: CW: murder, rape, sexual violence, war, gun violence, death, genocide, colonization, racism, torture, islamophobia, religious bigotry, body horror, misogyny, kidnapping, animal cruelty, child death, police brutality, injury, panic attacks, vomit, pedophili

Content Warnings

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caitlin_waddick's reviews 387 reviews

caitlin_waddick's reviews
387 reviews