This book left me speechless. At a time when we are witnessing the genocide of the Palestinians, this story was another reminder of the cruelty and absurdity of war. Of its utter destructiveness but also of people's resilience that seems to go beyond what's humanly possible. The author explores all of this so masterfully, using a mix of strong chatacter development, humor, supernatural elements, and not sugarcoating anything. (This book was a lot darker and includez more detailed descriptions of deadly physical violence than what I generally read. So if that's you as well, I definitely recommend reading the content warnings.)

A really ambitious novel that switches frequently between the main character's present experience, his memories of the past as a young boy, and the multiple voices he hears speaking to him in his head. The audiobook deals with this in a clever way by differentiating between the different voices, but it was still a stretch at times and I was happy to have the print copy for reference. It was an interesting and unusual story, and I could happily have read another 100 pages to find out what happened next.

*mixture of audiobook and print copy