PositiveEntropyArafat’s novel offers a different way of coming to terms with the self. It is a vivid character sketch of a young woman whose existence surpasses the limits of an identity bound by geo-political conflicts, heteronormativity, and intergenerational traumas. While honoring identity and origin(s), the novel also explores desires and mistakes, and ultimately, one’s capacity to exist too much ... The novel works in fragments and layers. Hovering over her mother’s presence and her shard-like memories is the larger history of violence in Palestine and the Middle East ... I realized when I finished the book that failure can give way to newness. It can lead to a greater understanding of one’s limits, as well as a reckoning with the vastness that resides within. Failure can also foster compassion and empathy towards others who may have failed us. In a particularly insightful moment, the narrator realizes that her mother, who she describes as having borderline personality disorder, may have mistreated her throughout her childhood and adolescence out of a place of regret and unfulfillment.
