Mornings In Jenin by,Susan Abulhawa~Review

Mornings In Jenin by, Susan Abulhawa
Description:
Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejas are moved into the Jenin refugee camp. There, exiled from his beloved olive groves, the family patriarch languishes of a broken heart, his eldest son fathers a family and falls victim to an Israeli bullet, and his grandchildren struggle against tragedy toward freedom, peace, and home. This is the Palestinian story, told as never before, through four generations of a single family.

The very precariousness of existence in the camps quickens life itself. Amal, the patriarch's bright granddaughter, feels this with certainty when she discovers the joys of young friendship and first love and especially when she loses her adored father, who read to her daily as a young girl in the quiet of the early dawn. Through Amal we get the stories of her twin brothers, one who is kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised Jewish; the other who sacrifices everything for the Palestinian cause. Amal’s own dramatic story threads between the major Palestinian-Israeli clashes of three decades; it is one of love and loss, of childhood, marriage, and parenthood, and finally of the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has.


My Review:

This was the first book I’ve read about the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict. I’ve read quite a few books about the Middle East but they have mostly been about the taliban, so this was new territory for me.

This story is about a Palestinian family spanning from 1941-2002. It is told from different viewpoints from people in the Abulheja family. It is a heartbreaking and powerful story from when they are forced from
their home and put into refugee camps in Jenin life gets worse and worse. They are terrorized and brutalized. This was a hard story to read, so many children, dead, beaten, shot, and orphaned.

The only thing I knew about this “Conflict”/War is what I’ve seen on the news and I have known for awhile that the news isn’t the whole story so it was good to see the other side of this story.

This book reads like non-fiction although its fiction it as made me curious enough to investigate further and read some of the books the author suggests at the end.

All in all a powerful very heartbreaking read I would recommend to anyone who likes the books written by Khaled Hosseini.

4 Stars