| Title | : | Replenishing the Sea of Galilee: A Family Saga across Ethnicity, Place, and Religion |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1626348499 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781626348493 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 296 |
| Publication | : | First published August 17, 2021 |
Replenishing the Sea of Galilee is a sweeping story of love, loss and the power of loyalty in the face of conflicting ideologies and religious beliefs. The story begins in 1940s Palestine where twins Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar work in their family inns. Educated by a Jesuit priest about the essence of his own Muslim religion, relative to love and sex, Rasheed follows closely the teachings of his mentor and includes Rasheeda, so that she learns those teachings as well.
When Rasheed falls in love with Natalia, a Jewish woman, he is able to apply what he learned from the priest to his budding relationship. However, it is the 1940s, and relations between Arabs and Jews are tense. Before long, those tensions come to a breaking point. Natalia mysteriously disappears, and Rasheed and Rasheeda are chased out of Palestine to Beirut, Lebanon.
Years pass, and though Rasheed continues to miss his beloved Natalia, he gets word of a surprising visitor—someone he didn’t even know existed. Rasheed’s life is upended, but in the most wonderful way.
As the Dinar family expands and enters the 1970s, their convictions are tested. In a dramatic final scene, the family reunites and proves once again that the thin line separating people because of their differences is powerless against the strength of family, love, and loyalty.
Replenishing the Sea of Galilee: A Family Saga across Ethnicity, Place, and Religion Reviews
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I gave this one 1.5 stars but I rounded up. I was excited to get this one as the description and idea seemed good. I like culturally diverse stories and was excited to get historical fiction from this part of the world as it’s not something I’ve seen a lot of. And that was where my happy feelings ended….
I found the writing to not be great. Maybe it was just the translation, but the words felt far away from the characters and seemed to describe their experiences shallowly. The characters were hard to connect to and I ended up not really caring what happened to any of them. The book proclaimed liberal thinking but the main character’s sister disappeared as soon as she got married.
Maybe this last issue I had with the book is a cultural one, but I really struggled that the only family dynamics I saw through generations were the teachings of how to have good foreplay. I did not need the images of a priest watching two teens have sex to grade his teachings. I did not need the image of brother and sister discussing how to have successful foreplay or father and son. The other issues the family faced felt melodramatic like a soap opera. -
Request review by author on advanced copy. My review follows:
I have found that books that are written in other languages and than translated loose a lot in depth and character development or when English is not the authors first language. Whether or not this was the case seems to still leave a lot out from the characters lives and the story itself. With this book I feel like I missed certain important details that may explain or help me feel closer to the characters. There was a space that just didn’t come together in the book. Also I feel that the sex scenes where over the top and unnecessary. They didn’t do anything for the story or the characters. I really wanted this to be a good tale.
I am appreciative of the advance copy and hope to see author publications, I’ve seen that with practice come greater stories. -
Thank you to BookishFirst and Greenleaf Book Group for an advance copy of this novel. Below is my honest opinion.
This historical fiction novel promised a multi-generational story from a time and place entirely different from my own. These epic family dramas are favorites of mine, but this story was a bit of a miss.
At just over 200 pages it is not the detailed story of generations of lovable yet flawed characters. Instead, this story seems to be the outline of what happened to two twins, Rasheed and Rasheeda, after Rasheed meets and falls in love with a woman who is Jewish. The story begins in Palestine in the 1940s where religion and politics can have a profound impact on daily life.
While we do get to know some characters in-depth, this story seemed to be missing the passion that could pull me in and hold my attention. Much of the story is choppy and surface-level, leaving the detailed parts for sex scenes that barely seemed necessary to the story. The dialogue was not believable and I could not distinguish one character's voice from another. -
“Replenishing the Sea of Galilee” is a first time read by Wagih Abu-Rish, a new author to this reader. I have had my share of misses this year with reading works from new authors, and this is one that missed its mark. I found myself at times not wanting to finish this book and skimming over chapters because the story was not well-written, the abundance of graphic intimate language, and non-believable content. The description did not portray what I was expecting in this novel. The family saga was just not there from a Middle East point of view...looking forward to the learning experience. I totally get the direction of the plot but somehow it lacked in the delivery for me as a reader. The struggle to finish this story was “real”.
Thank you to NetGalley and Greenleaf Book Group for my fair and honest review. -
I got to be honest and say, I didn’t hate this book but I didn’t love it either. I thought the initial concept of the story and what it was supposed to be about was great. I love reading a good romance with diversity. I thought the time period it was of great historical significance and there were many many diversifying characters in it.
let’s start off with the characters. I felt like the story did not pay enough attention to characters in the different generations. There was not enough family history for you to fill the significance that said history. This book would’ve been so much better had there been more talk and more details given about the history and the generations that came before. Now on a slightly better note, I did like the characters in the book for what they were. for the most part the rest of the characters more fairly interesting.
Overall this was not a horrible book, but it wasn’t a great book either. I had some real issues with the beginning of the story. I thought there should’ve been some things in there that were. Honestly they were not things I was expecting especially about the sex education in the book. this book needed to be larger it needed to have more words. I don’t say that often about books. Normally I think books are too long, but this book was just too short! That is why I rated this book a two out of five stars. -
The book jacket of Replenishing of the Sea of Galilee promises a family saga across ethnicity, place, and religion, and while all of those issues were touched upon, they were overshadowed by romance story lines that were of little interest to me. The twins Rasheed and Rasheeda, had interesting origin stories, and I found their early years quite enjoyable. I was disappointed that Rasheeda's character fell off the page once she married. And, even Rasheed's fascinating career pursuits and fast friendship with a vineyard owner couldn't overcome the bizarre romantic storylines.
I would only recommend this book to readers who have an interest in romantic storylines and a fairly high threshold for sexual content.
Thank you to Bookish First for an ARC of Replenishing the Sea of Galilee in exchange for an honest review. -
Replenishing the Sea of Galilee is primarily the story of Rasheed Dinar, a man from a wealthy Palestinian family. The book begins in the 1940s, and continues until the late 1970s. Rasheed and his twin sister Rasheeda grow up, find their loves, and start their families and careers.
The book synopsis says it's a sweeping family epic, and I was expecting much more from this book. The writing style was choppy, and I never really got in to the story. I felt like this story could have been so much more - I was expecting something along the lines of Exodus by Leon Uris. This book is not that.
I also did not like how the female characters were portrayed. They were only mentioned in relation to the men. Natalia, for example, is only mentioned in relation to Rasheed, Omar, and another male character. I think she could have had a very interesting story, but we never learned it, and it was never clear how Rasheed fell so in love with such a flat character.
I also found the sex scenes unbelievable and fairly disturbing. -
I was really excited to read this book given it's setting in an important historical place and time and the added piece of characters from diverse religious backgrounds. However, I was really disappointed. In my opinion the book tried to do too much in too few pages. The author seemed to want this to be a sweeping family saga that stretched across generations of the families, but too little time was spent on the various eras of the family history. This left me wanting more detail about each generation and the lives and challenges. This lack of detail also left the characters feeling shallow and underdeveloped. The storyline about the priest who teaches his student how to make love to a woman and encourages the student to observe the priest having sex and allow the priest to watch him as well was just plain disturbing especially given all of the recent sexual abuse scandals involving priests. Finally, I found that the author used too many totally unrealistic events to move the story forward and this turned me off.
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Thank you to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.
This is a book that spans three generations of a family from Palestine. It covers many interesting aspects of religion, politics, ethnicity and places around the world. At first glance, this sounds like a very interesting read that would draw the reader into a family saga that would be unforgettable.
I will say that I can appreciate that there are not very many books that I know of that cover these topics. So it was at first interesting. However, it was not a very well written book. I felt like we were given many small recaps of snippets in life. It did not flow very well. I also had a really hard time connecting with the characters. They all seemed the same generation after generation. While the women were all from different places and religions, they all felt the same as well.
There was a very disturbing and strange exchange where a priest educated his student on sex and love making. It was not necessary and yet it was a thread that was woven throughout the entire book. It was passed on from one generation to the next.
The one part of the book that I liked and it seemed like it would have been a great opportunity to expand upon even more. The title comes into play while one of the first characters and his love interest are mourning significant losses in their lives and they go to the see and let their tears replenish the sea. It was very sweet and beautiful.
Overall, I wanted to like it so much more but it was very boring and during the middle of the book we were bogged down in political strife which was important to the novel but very boring to read about.
I think there could be a lot of interesting discussion around this book so I encourage you to read it if you think it would be of interest. -
I received a free e-copy through a Goodreads giveaway, thank you. I gave it 1.5 stars and rounded up to 2.
Throughout my reading, I was wondering if I had it wrong thinking that this was fiction instead of a memoir or a personal narrative. It's the multi-perspective, descriptive (spanning across multiple decades) writing style that confuses me. Then again, this book doesn't give out that personal first-person narrative that you normally get from a real person's experience.
I was tempted to dnf, but the family saga with the diverse cultural, religious, and political backdrops kept me going. When I finished reading today, I glimpsed at the author's about page and suddenly it clicked. The author has a journalism background, that to me explains the descriptive, detached writing style. It feels like I just finished reading a long essay instead of a work of fiction. Could the translation be a factor? Possibly. -
Wagih Abu-Rish’s “Replenishing the Sea of Galilee” focuses on twins Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar. We meet the twins in the 1940s Palestine as young teenagers eager to experience the first throes of love and sexual stimulation. As the book unfolds across the decades, we follow the twins as they meet new people, learn to accept and appreciate different ideologies, and flee persecution brought on by the religious tensions of the region. Rasheed meets and falls in love with a young Jewish woman who suddenly disappears from her kibbutz, never to be seen again. Rasheeda marries a young British military man from a wealthy family and of Christian background. These experiences help them learn that, though religious beliefs may differ, they do not have to be a barrier to love or family.
When I first started “Replenishing the Sea of Galilee” I was excited, because we see little historical fiction centering on this region and time period. We often forget that the tensions of Nazi Germany and World War II spread far beyond the borders of Europe and affected basically the entire world. I found that the themes the author seemed to reach for were clouded by the heavy emphasis, or presence, of sex. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good, salacious romance, but it felt out of place in this book. The early scenes where we see the Jesuit priest encouraging his young student to let him watch him have sex with a fellow teenage girl were uncomfortable. It was also strange how much the twins seemed to discuss topics such as foreplay between them. It just created a dynamic between Rasheed and Rasheeda that felt murky, rather than an example of open communication between siblings. “Replenishing the Sea of Galilee” is framed as being a story about religion, family and loss, but those themes felt overshadowed by the regular digressions into sexual scenes that seemed to distract from the forward motion of the story.
I did appreciate that “Replenishing the Sea of Galilee’ highlights a commonly overlooked fact of history” that young women such as Rasheeda and Natalia had just as much desire and right to experiment with their sexuality as young men did, then and now. Taking place in the mid-20th century, we especially saw how young Rasheeda was afraid of “disgracing” her family by being found in a position of impropriety. She talked about the dreams she had for a career and wanting to experience real romance and passion, but knew that for a woman her age, in that time period, the things she wanted would have been seen by most as improper or vulgar. One wrong move, and she could bring shame to her entire family. So, I enjoyed how Abu-Rish seemed to level the playing field between his male and female characters so that they were portrayed as equals. And, I enjoyed how as Rasheeda grew older and the times modernized, we saw her taking on more career opportunities, such as managing the family inns.
“Replenishing the Sea of Galilee” definitely had some powerful moments which, despite some of the distracting sexual interludes, were enough to keep me attuned to the story. I would not necessarily recommend it for readers looking for clean historical fiction or religious fiction, but those who are interested in books with more diverse historical themes and who do not mind graphic romance would likely quite enjoy it. That leaves Abu-Rish with a wide enough audience for this book to make its own mark in the literary world. There is a lot of promise within the pages, and I was touched enough by the story to make me interested to read more from this author in the future. -
We follow twins, Rasheed and Rasheeda in post WW2 Palestine in this story. Loved wholly and completely by their father they each get the best education money can buy and while Rasheed is at university he meets a priest that changes everything for him in the world of sexual behavior. He takes these teachings from the priest, whom read them form the prophet Mohammed, and uses them to when he finds his one true love Natalia, a Polish Jew/Catholic that is there to help Palestine become a socialist but independent country from Isreal. When she is lost to him because of politics, she sends their son Omar to live with his father and Rasheed is both elated and saddened. Happy to be a father but devastated to lose his love. Rasheeda marries an English officer and lives in England where she is able to study even more and finds a suitable match for her nephew in Christina. This tale is a sometimes messy family affair but can they all achieve happily evert after in the time of political and territorial dispute?
I'll say I wasn't expecting the sexual part of this book to be so prominent and so much at the forefront. While I mostly enjoyed the story, it was sometimes difficult to follow what exactly was happening and the sex just seemed a little out of place occasionally.
We follow twins, Rasheed and Rasheeda in post WW2 Palestine in this story. Loved wholly and completely by their father they each get the best education money can buy and while Rasheed is at university he meets a priest that changes everything for him in the world of sexual behavior. He takes these teachings from the priest, whom read them form the prophet Mohammed, and uses them to when he finds his one true love Natalia, a Polish Jew/Catholic that is there to help Palestine become a socialist but independent country from Isreal. When she is lost to him because of politics, she sends their son Omar to live with his father and Rasheed is both elated and saddened. Happy to be a father but devastated to lose his love. Rasheeda marries an English officer and lives in England where she is able to study even more and finds a suitable match for her nephew in Christina. This tale is a sometimes messy family affair but can they all achieve happily evert after in the time of political and territorial dispute?
I'll say I wasn't expecting the sexual part of this book to be so prominent and so much at the forefront. While I mostly enjoyed the story, it was sometimes difficult to follow what exactly was happening and the sex just seemed a little out of place occasionally.
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Replenishing the Sea of Galilee: A Family Saga across Ethnicity, Place, and Religion by Wagih Abu-Rish is a novel taking place in Palestine and the United States over several generations. Mr. Abu-Rish is a Palestinian-American author and businessman.
In Palestine, twins Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar are born in the early 1940s. The Dinars are a successful, well-off family who own inns. Rasheed falls in love with Natalia, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who, unfortunately, disappears one day.
Furthermore, years later Rasheed discovers that he and Natalia have a son.
Replenishing the Sea of Galilee: A Family Saga across Ethnicity, Place, and Religion by Wagih Abu-Rish as a strange book. The novel was somewhat uncomfortable to read at some point, and the family dynamic seemed off.
I have two sisters and I would never discuss foreplay with them. Honestly, I cannot imagine two people, especially in the early 1940s discuss such issues. Not siblings, and especially not with a priest.
For a generational saga, this was a short book. I do enjoy those books, for example The Invisible Mountain by Carolina De Robertis. The magic of sagas is that you get to know the characters very well. This novel is much too short for such narrative. The characters, however, are lovely and likeable, and very interesting.
I found some other thing curious. Rasheed who works for the English mandate in Palestine interviews both Menachem Begin, considered a terrorist, and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The English intelligence are obviously very interested in the meeting with Begin, but not with Al-Husseini who went to Germany to meet Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, and other top Nazi officials?
That seemed very strange to me.
I thought the concept of the novel, however, was very good. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered to read it. I was looking forward to read about the time period from a point of view that is different from many of the other books I’ve read.
The novel’s early years of Rasheed and Rasheed were significantly interesting. However, Rasheeda just disappeared after she got married. I thought that her story was just as interesting as Rasheed, even though less dramatic.
This novel was more of a romance, with much sexual content. Not my cup of tea, but I’m glad I read it. -
A love story between a Muslim and a Jew in 1940’s Palestine. We follow the Dinar family across three generations.
I’m just going to jump right in. I love family sagas. Love them. They’re my favorite type of books because I love character studies. Put those characters in a setting I know little about, add religious and political tension, and it’s bound to be a forever favorite of mine.
Unfortunately, this was not that book.
I struggled with the writing style; it may be that the author has a background in journalism, so it might be my personal preference, but it felt like 200 pages of author's notes and ideas on where the story should go without fleshing it out. The character interactions felt empty and devoid of emotion, and the characters themselves were hard to connect with; they just seemed flat, unrealistic, and all had a similar tone. Also, the sex scenes were bizarre; the visual sex lessions from a priest was disturbing.
For a story that had an undercurrent of pushing equality between men and women against cultural and religious views, the women in this book were painted as immature and irrational.
I do understand what the author was trying to accomplish, and that was a big reason why I wanted to read the book. The overall idea that people are beyond their differences in culture and religion, as we all share a commonality in the importance of family and love. The execution, however, just didn’t work for me.
I would never dissuade someone from reading a book, just be aware of these things going in.
Thank you Green Leaf Books and BookishFirst for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review -
Replenishing the Sea of Galilee by Wagih Abu-Rish follows the Dinar family in a sweeping saga that spans decades, religions, and borders.
Okay, I’ll start by beginning. I love family sagas. I love the great bigness of reading a single family’s trials and tribulations. I love that all family sagas have something relatable in them. I love stories focusing on the Middle East because I always end up learning something. This book had everything I loved. In theory.
I loved every single character. Complex and deep in their human emotions, every character was lovable and I found myself rooting for them the entire time. That being said, the whole story felt like an incredibly underdeveloped rough draft. I truly don’t know how else to describe it. It felt like a family saga but cut in half (I will interject on myself real quick and say that if daunting 500 page family sagas aren’t for you, this may be a good starting point). The writing felt like a list of ideas the author wanted to write about, but then they forgot to fill in the gaps. Everything felt rushed, like a high school creative writing assignment.
I begrudgingly finished the book. All of the elements for a stunning novel were right there: wonderful characters, family turmoil and drama, globetrotting settings. It just never came together quite as well as I know it could have.
With all that being said, the theme of the whole story is stunning and present. The author’s message of love and acceptance of one another is loud and clear and I honestly loved the book for that. -
The first couple chapters tells the story of a family across 3 generations as they find love across cultures and countries. I thought the beginning of this book was very interesting and the plot seemed like it would be fantastic. I loved reading about Kareem and Amina, as well as Rasheed, Natalia, Rasheeda, and David. Unfortunately after Chapter 11 the book fell flat for me and I became very uninterested in the direction the plot went in. The characters were hard to connect with and invest in as a reader. I wish there was more to Rasheeda and David's story in the book because I found them to be really cute. I can understand that the book focused on Rasheed and Omar but I think it would have been cool to see how Rasheeda adjusted to living in London. The story follows twins, Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar. Set in Palestine during the 1940’s (and through the 1970’s), we follow their stories of loss, relationship hardship and the power of familial bonds and love. Rasheed, a Muslim, falls in love with a Jewish woman named Natalia. Over time, their religious differences get the better of them. Natalia disappears under weird circumstances. The twins are chased out of Palestine and land in Beirut, Lebanon. it’s a whirlwind from here on out! I think this is a timely and appropriate story for the love of differences between people. It teaches the importance of looking past your differences with others and instead focusing on our similarities. Proves that with mutual love and understanding.. anything is possible.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Greenleaf. -
I want to thank Netgalley for an advance read copy of this book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The book started out rocky for me. I am not a fan of the author's writing style. Reading his background at the end, I can better understand my thoughts and how the aligned with his journalistic background. I felt the story started out very stunted, robotic and two dimensional. In time I got more involved in the story but I will say his journalism background comes out more so than your typical prosaic novelist.
I did have some issues with the history part - one character goes to correspondence school and then the University of London from 1941-1944. That really sticks with me as historically something that is hard to swallow. Was the school still operating during those years? If so, why would a parent send his daughter there where the war was raging and food was scarce. etc? How did she get there? Traveling from Palestine to London at that time had to be next to impossible. Again, reading his profile things make more sense to me and you can see where his expertise comes into play in the rest of the book and how the above point wasn't part of the expert knowledge.
For my friends who like a good romance, while this once has a lot of romance in it, writing about it is not one of the authors stronger areas.
Overall I give it 3 stars as the story piqued my interest and I appreciated the work that went into this story. -
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for my review. I appreciate the opportunity to read this.
The story starts in 1940s Palestine and goes to the 1970s. The story follows a family divided by politics and religion and finally unites in the end. The Palestinian twins are very close and I like these characters. The writer does a good job of telling about their childhood. The boy falls in love with a Jewish woman who disappears. They are later reunited. They conceive a son together, unbeknownst to him.
The author weaves in the history of the era in the book. I like books that interweave different cultures but I found this book came up short. There was a scene with a priest and a young student regarding sex which I found disturbing. Also, later one of the characters falls in love with a woman whose father is very prejudiced towards Muslims and Catholics. I thought him out of character for a person who was supposed to be a professional. The exchange foreshadowed the two characters breaking up.
This is the author’s first novel and he made a good effort. It had the potential to be a good book.
Thank you for sharing this, Wagih Abu-Rish. -
The beginning of this book was so good. I loved the authors writing style. However the story just lost interest for me shortly after the twins were 17. I liked the book was a love story through turbulent times and between a Muslim and Jew. From the back description of the book, I expected the writing and story to unfold differently than it did. The fact that the story didn’t follow just Rasheed but also Rasheeda through out and that he always strived to make sure she was treated equally, was a nice part of the story. His character was good. I loved reading about Rasheeda and David, how their story unfolded. The mystery and sadness behind Natalia and Rasheed’s story was good but a little confusing at times too. The separation of the two and how his life continued as a journalist after being forced out of his hometown/village was interesting. I liked learning bits about Muslim beliefs and ideas too. The last part of the story changes things and went rather quick to read. Love can be finicky but it was interesting to read how the love stories all played out. While the story wasn’t what I expected, it was decent. Thank you bookishfirsts for letting me read this!
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4/5 Stars
Replenishing the Sea of Galilee is a tale of love and loss as we follow the Dinar family across three generations. It explores relations between cultures in several decades, and how those relations shape a family.
I was hooked from the first chapter as we explore Kareem and Amina Dinar's love story that led to their twins. The twins- Rasheed and Rasheeda- are the main focus for much of the book. Born in 1922, the twins grew up in a time that saw women as inferior. But that is not the case in the Dinar family. The believe that women can surpass their male counterparts, and should be treated equally.
We see this with the closeness the twins have with one another, especially as they learn more about sex and love. Each of the twins relationships test the boundaries of tensions between their differing worlds.
Loss is a heavy theme, even when you think everyone will have found happiness. I will admit that some of the relationships and choices felt juvenile, but it was heavily addressed by the characters themselves. Overall, I thought this was a beautiful story of a family.
Disclaimer: I won an advanced copy from Bookishfirst. -
This is an interesting story set during a time in history where there was so much turmoil all over the place. It’s look into the world that twins Rasheed and Rasheeda, live in with Palestine. Working with their family, it’s a close-knit community they engage in. They have a love of family and are deeply involved in their religion and faith. In some cases, I find that the religious figures that are there to guide and protect go farther than they should. Morally, I had a big problem with that. Even if it was warranted to further tell their story, (although to me it didn’t), it still bugged me. With that said, I did find a lot of it fascinating. The family drama as Rasheed falls in love with Natalie, a woman from another culture tugged at my heartstrings. Love is love and is not always equated as so in various communities. The overall ups and downs of a 30-year span of time faced a lot of the usual life lessons of loss, life, and love. I think that the lessons on what was going in the world during those times were very thought-provoking. Overall, it was a pretty decent book. I can’t say I always agreed with some of the views expressed but felt it was done well.
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I really loved the first few chapters of this book. It tells the story of a family across 3 generations as they find love across cultures and countries. I thought the beginning of this book was very interesting and the plot seemed like it would be fantastic. I loved reading about Kareem and Amina, as well as Rasheed, Natalia, Rasheeda, and David. Unfortunately after Chapter 11 the book fell flat for me and I became very uninterested in the direction the plot went in.
I never really felt connected to the characters as much as I wish I did. For me, all of the female characters seemed very two dimensional with no life outside of the main male characters. There was also a lack of finesse and detail within the writing throughout that made a lot of the events and conversations very uninteresting. This book read similar to a textbook.
I did enjoy the various people and cultures represented throughout this book and thought it was interesting to learn about this time in history.
Thank you to Bookishfirst and Greenleaf Book Group for the ARC of this book. -
I genuinely enjoyed this story. I do think that it was a little face-paced at times but the general plot was really nice. I think it got easier to read the further I got in the book. However, this book is definitely not what I would normally pick up from the shelf but I am glad that I read it.
I'm not super up to date on the historical factors of the plot so I can't say how accurate the plot is but I was able to get lost in the story.
I could feel the love and heartbreak from Natalia and Rasheed. I also enjoyed the sibling relationship between Rasheed and Rasheeda. I also think that the element of multiple generations is a cool piece to include. It shows you the effect of the world around the characters on how they act and react to others and the environment.
I wish there was more to Rasheeda and David's story in the book because I found them to be really cute. I can understand that the book focused on Rasheed and Omar but I think it would have been cool to see how Rasheeda adjusted to living in London. -
I was very excited when I found out I would be receiving a advanced copy of Replenishing the Sea of Galilee. It sounded so interesting and part of the story took place in Lebanon. I am half Lebanese and was excited to read about the country. The story follows twins, Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar. Set in Palestine during the 1940’s (and through the 1970’s), we follow their stories of loss, relationship hardship and the power of familial bonds and love. Rasheed, a Muslim, falls in love with a Jewish woman named Natalia. Over time, their religious differences get the better of them. Natalia disappears under weird circumstances. The twins are chased out of Palestine and land in Beirut, Lebanon. I won’t ruin the most exciting parts of the book but it’s a whirlwind from here on out! I think this is a timely and appropriate story for the love of differences between people. It teaches the importance of looking past your differences with others and instead focusing on our similarities. Proves that with mutual love and understanding.. anything is possible.
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Replenishing the Sea of Galilee was a very disappointing read. I am still confused as to what the book is all about. The novel's premise really sounded interesting when I received an advanced review copy of this book but just after few pages I was scratching my head figuring out on what I was reading. I just could not connect to the characters or their emotions. The novel is about Rasheed and Rasheeda but Rasheeda practically disappears after her wedding.
The editing of this novel is poor and there are lot of gaps in the story. The whole novel is about love but I felt the only aspect the novel actually focused was on sex and foreplay. The scenes are bizarre and were unnecessary. Characters keep popping up from nowhere without context and no back story provided. As I said earlier I am still figuring out as to what I read. I did not want to finish this novel but somehow did to just see where this novel was heading to. I love to read books and stories about diverse places and ethnicities but sadly this book did not deliver it. -
I fell in love with Replenishing the Sea of Galilee as fast as Rasheed fell for Natalia. The deeper into the story I got, the more I loved its characters and themes. I read this book in one sitting because I had to know what would happen next.
The themes of women having the freedom to go to school, to work, and to choose their own romantic paths shined in this story. I also really enjoyed the theme of viewing humans as humans and looking past what someone believes religiously, and what part of the world they are from, in search of true love. Love is the most powerful thing in this world, and Replenishing the Sea of Galilee was a great reminder of love’s power and love’s beauty.
While this story began in the 1940s, I believe it is a story that could be told with a modern lens. I felt as if I knew the characters, that I went to school with them, and that I attended their life events. I would recommend Replenishing the Sea of Galilee to everyone who loves a good love story. -
I got the chance to read the first impression of this book on bookishfirst. And THEN was lucky enough to be selected as a winner.
First, I love the cover. The color caught my eye right away.I think this book was good! It was a great read, I enjoyed the characters and the writers writing style.
I am so happy I was given the chance to get a first impression - because I knew I had to read it. And it probably would not have come up on my book radar anytime soon.Historical fiction is my go-to genre. But to now read a book that takes place during the 1940's that is not centered around World War II is even more eye opening.
Rasheed and Rasheeda are twins in Palestine working at a family inn. The work closely with a priest to go more in depth with their Muslin beliefs. And then comes Natalie. A Jewish women that Rasheed falls in love with. Tensions and drama run high- for they are from two different worlds. -
I usually enjoy books about different cultures, regions, religious views, and family sagas but I wasn't able to finish reading this book. The beginning was way too fast paced and because of this, I couldn't feel a connection to the characters. I don't consider myself a prude but the sex scenes were not only graphic but much of them were voyeurism, which made my stomach churn. I tried to keep reading to see if it got any better but it focuses heavily on sex, as well as a brother and sister talking about sex and their sexual encounters, which I found cringey. Perhaps there is more to this novel if you can get past these scenes but I was simply unable to continue, which is a rarity for me. Normally, I push through and read the entire book but this one was so disturbing to me, I couldn't. I feel badly fulfilling writing this review but I am fulfilling my duty to write an honest review for BookishFirst and am immensely grateful for their continued opportunities to read and review ARCs.
