I usually do not read this kind of book, but I must say it wow-ed me on so many levels. It started out to slow for my liking, but after about three chapters I was highly addicted and I wanted to know the life story of Ichmad Hamid. This book follws the life of Ichmad Hamid from when he was a child to when he begins an elderly man. You learn of the bright mind that Ichmad has and how he tries to get a better life for his family because of his gifted mind. I learned quite a bit about culture from this book, and I learned an even greater amount of knowledge on racism and hatred. This book centrals around a main concept (at least what I got as the main theme) of family. No matter what happened in this book Ichmad cared greatly about his family and always focused on that. When Ichmad went through school, he made sure to consider his family before every move. Ichmad made sure to think of his family when he started to develop farther in his love life as well.

I only had two problems with this book, and one was what was centered around Nora. She did go along well with the theme of family, but her storyline did break my heart quite a bit.

My second problem was that the book just seemed to end. I didn't really see a resolution of any form happen, it felt as if the author ran out of words she was allowed to use and ended it. If some form of slowing down or conclusion would have happened, it could have been a much better book.

Either way, I believe it deserves 5 out of 5 stars for the beautiful message it sends.

Side note: I received this book free through Goodreads First Reads. ( )

This book tells the story of Ichmad Hamid, and his life growing up in a rural Palestinian village in the Triangle area under Israeli control. When his father is imprisoned, he becomes the primary support for his mother and siblings. Through a series of fortunate events, Ichmad obtains a scholarship and studies science. He is initially scorned by his Israeli professor, but they ultimately become research partners. Ichmad’s brother, Abbas, is injured as a youth, and takes a different path, joining forces with the resistance, and viewing Ichmad’s actions as traitorous.

The overarching goal is to portray the difficulties for Palestinians living in this region. It is written by a Jewish woman who has lived in the area. This book encourages reconciliation and working together. It is about overcoming pre-conceived notions. It shows that getting to know a person as an individual can make a huge difference.

There are a few minor issues with the execution. The characters tend to change almost instantaneously rather than organically and gradually. The plot jumps from one major life event to another with little transition. But still, it is hard to be too critical of a book encourages peace in the Middle East. I read this book as a fictional companion to a non-fiction book that covers similar topics (The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan).
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I won this book through Goodreads First Reads but that does not affect my opinion on the book.

I usually really like historical fiction books, and this was no exception. Just like any good books from this genre it provided insight into how people used to live. But this is different in one way: it is set in wartime Palestine (1955 and onwards).

Now, I'm ashamed to say that prior to reading this book I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. I knew that there were always wars in the Middle East, but that's it*. You can imagine how shocked and disgusted I was to discover that Jews, after everything that'd happened in the second world war, had then gone and done something so terrible to Palestinians. It's explained more further into the book, but at first it was just a "wow" moment.

This book was such an eye-opener into how they lived too, and how terrible they got treated. I was so disgusted and saddened to read about the main character's life as a child, all the hardships and injustices his whole family faced. And the thing is that this sort of thing actually happened to millions of people, it's not just fiction. That was the thought that was nagging at me the whole time, that countless other people had to live through this.

I think what made this story good was that it was based on real history and exposed so much of the terrible life Palestinians had. But it was good in other ways too, of course. I was completely unable to put it down while I read the first two parts. It grabbed my attention from the first page and didn't let it go until I was 200 pages in. I was put off reading it around that point because I really didn't like the person that Ichmad (the protagonist) had become. In fact, I just wanted to slap him across the face. He didn't want to solve any of the problems in his home country, only take everyone to America, which he seemed to think was so perfect. He was just so selfish and naive when he was an adult, much more than he had been as a child/teen/young person. I forgave him in the end, and realised that the author was just trying to show us what a life like that can do to a person and show us that Ichmad was a real person, not a Mary-Sue.

All in all, a wonderful book which I highly recommend to anyone, even if you do not like this sort of thing. The Almond Tree really raises awareness about so many issues and everyone can learn from this book. If you read this book then I'm sure that the next time you're watching the news and see x number of people in ______ country killed and wounded, it won't just be more of the same thing, you'll feel connected to all these people suffering miles and miles away. Yes, you might feel guilty, but at least acknowledging that this sort of thing is happening is much better than turning a blind eye to it all.



(*Isn't that terrible that I knew nothing about any of it? I mean, we're not taught anything to do with this is school. We spend countless history lessons learning about the first and second world wars, yet get taught nothing about things in other countries, unless it's related to our country and we were in the right. That's really annoying me right now) ( )

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Amazing! Very descriptive, and depressing. It's terrible that we still make people live like that. ( )

I finished this book over two days, having received a copy via a Goodreads giveaway. Sometimes it was hard to keep going, to read through the struggles Ichmad Hamid faced; I wondered constantly how anyone could continue moving forward when faced with such adversity, without losing their spirit to the chaos and tension around them. I learned how little I knew about the history of the struggles between Palestine and Israel, and I connected with much of what Baba said with regards to finding a common ground through which to communicate with others who might be 'different' in some way. Many of my page corners are folded to mark where I've found a quote that resonated with me too.

Knowing that there are still so many people caught up in the legacy of this conflict is heartbreaking. I am grateful for the opportunity to be reminded, via your story Michelle, to make a positive difference in the world around me. Thank you! ( )