More of a 3.5 than a 4, but that's goodreads' fault, not mine.

I typically avoid reading books about Palestine as for most of my adult life I've worked full-time at pro-Palestine non-profits and this privileged white boy can only take so many stories of indescribable tragedy and loss at a time.

For me, that's at first what Mornings in Jenin started out like. Traditional characters being exposed to the foundational events of the Palestinian experience - the Nakba, the occupation, refugees - and all the collected indignities and brutalities that go along with it. The clear injection of political points into the text really disrupted the flow through much of the first half of the book.

However, things picked up in the second half, when the story focused more on the characters and less on the continual calamities that have befallen the Palestinians. I think Abulhawa does a great job in the latter sections in letting her characters tell the story, through very touching and emotional writing. It seemed her characters had more say, even though they were still exposed to events beyond their control.

A very good first novel. A very good novel about Palestine, which captures not only the historical events, but contributes to an understanding of how those events impacted specific individuals in a myriad of ways...a lot of humanizing spread amply around to all sides, which I think is an important inclusion.