Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestinian Odyssey Through Apartheid by Nathan Thrall

5 reviews

sarahjsnider's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Car accident

Moderate: Physical abuse and Rape

paperknotbooks's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Read for BookTube Prize. To be rated at a later date.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

queenoftheharpies's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Completely devastating. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual violence, Violence, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Car accident, Colonisation, and War

isalime's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

A bus full of kindergarteners is hit by a semi-truck near Jerusalem. The bus flips and catches fire. It took hours for emergency services to arrive. 

 

The crash serves as a type of epicenter for the book. The book is broken up into 5 sections with different POV and life stories of Palestinians and Israelies who were at the scene of the accident. Through their life stories, you learn about the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

 

“Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy” is a fitting subtitle as by the end you understand why the children were on the bus, why the semi-truck crashed into bus, why the emergency services took hours to arrive, why the accident was inevitable, and why different itirations of this tragedy will continue to happen throughout the region. 

 

I had little to no knowledge about the conflict and day to day life of Palestinians. I felt the book did its best to give me a concise history lesson and social context of the Israel-Palestine conflict. That being said, there were a couple of things I didn’t like. There are a lot of characters and even with the character list at the start of the book, it was hard for me to keep track of who everyone was. While the crash is the epicenter of the book, it takes a backseat as you learn about the life stories of the characters. I wasn’t always interested in the life stories and was dying to get back to the crash and the aftermath. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Violence

meldasilas's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

5.0

A heartbreaking picture of living as a Palestinian in the West Bank, this book takes you on a winding journey through a man's life full of sadness, regret, and ambiguity told through the narrative of bus crash that involves a kindergarten class.

As a mom of a kindergartener, this is the most heartbreaking book I read all year, particularly because it goes through the frustratingly difficult history between Palestine and Israel and demonstrates how every small daily element of life a free person takes for granted is not offered in the West Bank.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail