A Woman in Jerusalem by A.B. Yehoshua

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Stars: ****
This book was read for the Jewish Literature, Initials, What’s in a Name? and Book Around the World challenges.
This is a very interesting novel by a Jewish author. It’s written differently than most books I’ve read. It’s written from a third person point of view and makes me feel like I’m listening to a narrator. What’s really interesting is every so often throughout the book is a small italicized paragraph or two that shows what is thought from the point of view of someone not important to the story; for example a neighbour or guard. I found this extremely interesting and a great idea.

The actual storyline is quite different. The title makes you think the book is about a woman who lives in Jerusalem when in fact, the beginning of the book, the woman is dead and the whole book takes place after that. This is quite a unique perspective. To the average person, when someone dies, a funeral is held and they are buried and that is that. If it’s not someone you knew personally, than the details don’t concern you at all. This book gives a glimpse of how things work after someone dies from identification to finding next of kin to making arrangements for funeral and burial. It’s not extremely depressing though like you may think it is.

I also liked that the main character’s dreams are described in detail. It shows how our minds take things in our lives and jumble them up to make our dreams. This is why our dreams often don’t make sense, because they are a bunch of stories jumbled up into one. It’s like taking the pages of a short story book and rearranging them completely.

All in all this was a very interesting book

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About Kathleen

I've been a nonfiction lover for as long as I can remember. I love children's nonfiction as well and love to share my knowledge and the books I gained them from, with the world. I wish more people would give nonfiction a chance.