Hala Alyan’s debut novel tells the story of four generations of a palestinian family through multiple POVs.

Especially poignant given today’s current political climate was how this novel showed all of the changes the Yacoub family grew through but the background that was always the same: the ongoing
Israeli-Palestinian war.

It is hard to sit here in the safety of my home writing a review for a historical fiction novel that doesn’t feel like fiction when we see so many palestinian families still facing this violence today.
I can’t imagine looking to someone you love and asking them if they think you’re both going to die..
Not being able to speak the names of murdered family members because it hurts too much. The duality of wanting to forget but also being tasked with remembering.
Memories painful enough that they aren’t passed down to the younger generations & without being passed down, whole histories being erased. We also see the disconnect between refugee grandparents and their grandchildren. The loss of a culture.

To say that I spent the last few chapters crying would also be an understatement. Given the overarching theme of remembering, the fate of one of the Yacoub women was heartbreaking.

What was most interesting about reading this through a multiple POV lens was that these family members are all survivors and that means something different to each of them.
The timeline was hard to follow at times but overall so rich in its storytelling.

When we look at our TVs and see the atrocities being committed, I think it’s “easy” to be angry, but what’s harder is wondering:
“How many windows should any person own?” as Atef asks himself.
For the families who survive and who have to be displaced, sometimes more than once, this book shows the consequences of that displacement that are felt so far down the line.

What is life but a series of memories that we hope will never leave us? And some, unfortunately, are tasked with carrying the harshest of memories.