How does one get through this book in one go at all? I was incapable of doing so simply because of how much rage and sadness it caused me. The story follows two main characters, Alaa (a Palestinian man who currently lives in present-day occupied Jaffa, aka Tel Aviv) and Ariel (I like to call him the 'Woke' Zionist simply because he believes in the rights for Palestinians and whatnot but refuses to acknowledge that Palestine was stolen land, and that Palestinians still require military supervision). When Alaa and other Palestinians vanish into thin air, he's left with Alaa's journal to uncover what has happened. This book narrates a speculative tale of the events that follow, the reaction of the military and the zionists once they discover Palestinians have disappeared. Some assumed they were on strike and that their lives were in danger. Some were already eyeing houses belonging to the Palestinians who vanished to buy. And while Ariel claims that he is different than others simply because he believes Palestinians and the 'Israelis' can coexist; while he reprimands his mother when she phones him and tells him that there are houses by the sea she already has her eyes on which belonged to the already vanished Palestinians; it was incredibly ironic how Ariel himself has settled into Alaa's apartment; comfortably invading his space, eating his food, sleeping in his bed, claiming the apartment now his. And now, with Alaa gone, he flips through Alaa's journal and begins to translate his journal entries into Hebrew. Colonizer behavior is when you not only steal someone's country, someone's land, someone's home, but also choose to steal the core of someone's vulnerability; their memories too. The irony of Ariel's behavior really concludes one thing; that at the end of the day, no matter how much they try to deny Israel is stolen land, their actions will always say otherwise. On Alaa's journal, he writes of his grandmother who just passed, and the memories of Jaffa she told him about. These retellings are some of the most heartbreaking journal entries I've ever read, beautifully written, especially on memory and the loneliness of being displaced from home; "Cities are stories and I only remember what I myself lived, or fragments from your stories and what you lived, but they are truncated. I remember *their* stories very well. The ones I learned in school, heard on TV, and read and wrote in school and college. That's why I remember them like I remember my ID number. I know it by heart and can recite it any minute. I memorized their stories and their white dreams about this place so as to pass exams. But I carved my stories, yours, and those of tohers who are like us, inside me. We inherit memory the way we inherit the color of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Your memory pains me." Reading is resistance.