"They sat in silence then, the three of them, for now there seemed no need to say another word. Everything had been said at last, cleared out of the way finally. There was nothing left in the way of a barrier or a shadow, only the clear light pouring down from the sun. They might be floating in the light—it was as vast as the ocean, but clear, without colour or substance or form. It was the lightest and most pervasive of all elements and they floated in it. They found the courage, after all, to float in it and bathe in it and allow it to pour onto them, illuminating them wholly, without allowing them a single shadow to shelter in."


This was my first Anita Desai book and I need to read more of her ASAP!

How do you rate or review a book like this? All I can do is share some of my highlights and implore you to read this emotionally devastating poetry collection:

"Don’t ever be surprised
to see a rose shoulder up
among the ruins of the house:
This is how we survived."

"People die.
Others are born.
For us,
the fear of dying before living
haunts us while we are still
in our mothers’ wombs."

"The scent of coffee still hangs in the air. But where is the kitchen?"

"Through it all, the strawberries have never stopped growing."

"And when we die,
our bones will continue to grow,
to reach and intertwine with the roots of the olive
and orange trees, to bathe in the sweet Yaffa sea.
One day, we will be born again when you’re not there.
Because this land knows us. She is our mother.
When we die, we’re just resting in her womb
until the darkness is cleared."

"We deserve a better death.
Our bodies are disfigured and twisted,
embroidered with bullets and shrapnel.
Our names are pronounced incorrectly
on the radio and TV.
Our photos, plastered onto the walls of our buildings,
fade and grow pale.
The inscriptions on our gravestones disappear,
covered in the feces of birds and reptiles.
No one waters the trees that give shade
to our graves.
The blazing sun has overwhelmed
our rotting bodies."

"I am neither in nor out.
I am in between.
I am not part of anything.
I am a shadow of something.
At best,
I am a thing that
does not really
exist.
I am weightless,
a speck of time
in Gaza.
But I will remain
where I am."

"No, I just think of poetry as an idea, not as rigid form that I need to follow. The word for poetry in Arabic, sha’ir, doesn’t refer to a particular form, it only has to do with feeling. So you have to be an expert in showing your feelings on paper or reciting your poetry to people so that they can feel what you’re feeling. It can be an image but it does have to leave an impact on the reader. And if you can make them cry or smile, then you are a poet; if you can make them shiver, then you are a poet."

"Yes, of course. Gazans have to show the world that they cannot be defeated. When a building housing a theater was destroyed in an attack in 2018, for example, many musicians came to play their music on the ruins of that building. When the Italian tower complex was hit by the Israelis in 2014, a young artist painted many different faces on the destroyed walls—gloomy faces, hopeful faces—looking toward the sky. It’s very difficult that we have to do these things, but we cannot tell the world that we are giving up."

"But being Palestinian, especially from Gaza, can also feel uneasy. When I needed to inquire as to whether I could return to Gaza through Egypt or Jordan, there was no embassy I could go to in the U.S. No matter where I am—in Gaza, in Palestine, if I could even get there, or in the United States—I remain stateless."

Free Palestine.

(This book put me in a month long slump)
(less of a review, more of a small, not-thought-out rant)

I had seen a lot of praise for this book and since I love a good dystopia, I was really excited to read it and picked it up as my first read of the new year.

It starts off strong, and the initial desperation and pain of Frida trying to convince the authorities (and everyone around her) that she is a good mother is so well written. But it just all goes downhill. The (kinda) likeable and pitiable Frida of the initial chapters slowly becomes an extremely whiny and frustrating character. Unlikable characters are fine, I love them. But I don't think the author wanted this character to come off as unlikable. But Frida's constant need for her daughter to want her and need her, with absolutely no brain cells wasted on thoughts of her well-being! Ma'am! Please! Get a grip!

The book is so slow and so repetitive that even if you skipped a few chapters here and there, you wouldn't miss anything of import. I couldn't bring myself to care too much about the other mothers at the school no matter how much I tried to.

I wish this book had focused more on the immigrant parenting style vs US parenting style, because the scenes where Frida is trying to defend her parents and their love for her were the best parts of this entire book.

The idea behind this book and the message it wanted to convey was something that appealed to me but I just wasn't satisfied with the execution. The school was weird. The fact that the general population is entirely okay with it knowing that tomorrow they themselves could be labeled bad parents and sent to play with android dolls is very very weird. I don't think the author really planned out the dystopian setting very well.

This was brilliant!

The pacing is inconsistent and the start's really slow, but I am so glad I stuck with it!

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I liked it but at the same time I didn't??

I was expecting a bigger focus on Amaya and her obsessive tendencies from her initial stalking of Kaavi, so was a bit disappointed on that front. The pacing was also weird.

Loved the Sri Lankan setting and the author's writing style! Will definitely check out more of her work in the future.

I did not expect this book to be so fun!!