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A review by books_ergo_sum
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
emotional
reflective
5.0
This book was amazing-it's going to end up being my favourite book of the year.
It felt so real. And it kinda defies explanation. Because of how nuanced it was? I keep erasing everything | write in this review because like, I could say:
✨ it's about a Palestinian woman—welll, it's more complicated than that. She's from Haifa and her family is multigenerationally diasporic. Some of her family members had Israeli passports, some West Bank passports, some European passports, etc.
✨ it's about Palestinian resistance-welll, this meant something different to literally every single character. Disagreements about what resistance is was the subtext to almost every conversation. Our heroine especially didn't have a clear relationship to it.
✨ it's about actors rehearsing for a Hamlet play in the West Bank-welll, nothing was ever that simple in here.
Nothing about this book was direct. And that was kind of the point? I think it says something about living under occupation.
Plus, all the details in this book! There was a moment where I was almost overwhelmed by them. This new character, that conversation, this flashback, that Shakespeare quote, this history fact... and then. All the little details started coming back around, getting resolved, being combined with something else to create a reveal, to create a twist, to create a moment so impactful that it hit me in the gut.
And it was... Moving? Thrilling? Cathartic? It was the kind of (audio) book that stops you in your tracks and you just stand there in the middle of the sidewalk as people walk around you (yup, that happened).
And I highly recommend the audiobook. It was communicating stuff I think I would have missed if l'd read it with my eyeballs. You know how people can say "bless your heart" but mean something completely different? There was a lot of that going on with the conversations between these Palestinian characters.
It felt so real. And it kinda defies explanation. Because of how nuanced it was? I keep erasing everything | write in this review because like, I could say:
✨ it's about a Palestinian woman—welll, it's more complicated than that. She's from Haifa and her family is multigenerationally diasporic. Some of her family members had Israeli passports, some West Bank passports, some European passports, etc.
✨ it's about Palestinian resistance-welll, this meant something different to literally every single character. Disagreements about what resistance is was the subtext to almost every conversation. Our heroine especially didn't have a clear relationship to it.
✨ it's about actors rehearsing for a Hamlet play in the West Bank-welll, nothing was ever that simple in here.
Nothing about this book was direct. And that was kind of the point? I think it says something about living under occupation.
Plus, all the details in this book! There was a moment where I was almost overwhelmed by them. This new character, that conversation, this flashback, that Shakespeare quote, this history fact... and then. All the little details started coming back around, getting resolved, being combined with something else to create a reveal, to create a twist, to create a moment so impactful that it hit me in the gut.
And it was... Moving? Thrilling? Cathartic? It was the kind of (audio) book that stops you in your tracks and you just stand there in the middle of the sidewalk as people walk around you (yup, that happened).
And I highly recommend the audiobook. It was communicating stuff I think I would have missed if l'd read it with my eyeballs. You know how people can say "bless your heart" but mean something completely different? There was a lot of that going on with the conversations between these Palestinian characters.