Shibli does an amazing job of creating distinct voices and distinct perspectives - Part One, whilst detailing the horrific violence of the Israeli soldiers and settlements, employs an extremely detailed and detached prose style. Part Two, however, from the perspective of a Palestinian woman living within the occupation twenty five years later, is rife with life and personality and presents the way Palestinians are forced exist, the way their perceptions of themselves and their lives have been distorted. The way these two timelines intertwine and collide is atmospheric and anxious and tragic, bonding the past and present irrevocably, harking especially on the concept of borders - physical and psychological ones - that in the past and present provide the framework for violence and the bounds of oppression.

Since I lack the ability to evaluate things rationally, situations like these have a severe impact on me; they shake and destabilise me to the point that I can no longer fathom what is permissible and what is not, and I end up trespassing even more borders, worse ones than before. Yet all my fear and anxiety and internal turmoil dissipates when this trespassing occurs within the confines of my solitude. Solitude is so forgiving of trespassed borders; it was only thanks to my time spent alone, sitting at my table in the mornings, 'working' on something, that I was able to make my discovery.