dgw reviewed We Look Like the Enemy by Rachel Shabi
Review of 'We Look Like the Enemy' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I won this book from Goodreads Giveaways. I'm still in the middle of reading it, but my review will be published as soon as possible.
Disclaimer: I won this book from First Reads
We Look Like the Enemy is a well-researched, in-depth book. In some ways, I feel like comparing it to [b:fill-in-id] because both are written in a similar heavily-cited, journalistic style.
Like Start-Up Nation, this book was a very informative read. However, I found it hard to keep reading. I expect to have to push myself through the first 50 or 100 pages of a book, no matter what the genre, but I had to push myself through the middle of this one. The first few chapters and the last chapter read the easiest; the rest of the book seemed to move slowly.
No, this book is not a narrative, though the subtitle—"the hidden story of Israel's …
I won this book from Goodreads Giveaways. I'm still in the middle of reading it, but my review will be published as soon as possible.
Disclaimer: I won this book from First Reads
We Look Like the Enemy is a well-researched, in-depth book. In some ways, I feel like comparing it to [b:fill-in-id] because both are written in a similar heavily-cited, journalistic style.
Like Start-Up Nation, this book was a very informative read. However, I found it hard to keep reading. I expect to have to push myself through the first 50 or 100 pages of a book, no matter what the genre, but I had to push myself through the middle of this one. The first few chapters and the last chapter read the easiest; the rest of the book seemed to move slowly.
No, this book is not a narrative, though the subtitle—"the hidden story of Israel's Jews from Arab lands"—might suggest it. The organizational structure eluded me. The chapter titles did cover the main topic of each chapter, but a lot of times the text would refer to something from a few chapters before without any restatement. I found such references hard to follow.
Really, the whole book was a bit hard to follow. I expect that a richer background in Israeli politics, history, and culture would have helped me to better understand the book, but I selected this book from the giveaway list in large part because I expected to learn about Israel's culture. I was probably mistaken in my expectation that I would learn about Israel as a whole from a book focused on a subset of the country's population.
When I've had a chance to learn more about Israel as a nation, and as a culture, I will try reading this book again and hopefully comprehend more of what it has to say.