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Edges: O Israel O Palestine
by Leora Skolkin-Smith
unique and riveting (1/3/2007)
It took me only a few days to read Edges,this book blew me away. It is hypnotic, frightening--the feeling of danger never let up, not for a second. It is beautiful, visceral--I think of it and smell oranges and desert (I grew up in a desert), and oh--the author so nailed that terrible longing that I remember feeling at 14 or so. The scene in Palestine with the mother, all those shops, colors, smells--I was in heaven reading that, and scared to death at the same time.

To be able to write somebody like this mother, horrible and beautiful all at once, takes great talent. I also loved that it was smooth-- one second, or more than a second, then raw as hell the next. I think this is why the unexpected moments worked so well, why a Jewish mother, worried about safety, would suddenly drag her youngest daughter into a place that turns out to be not safe at all (those boys, after night fell, in Palestine), and why I bought, completely, Liana's taking off to find William, to find Paris, to find that something she longed for.

It's absolutely not perfect, but that's a good thing,
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