This is why I wanted to read more Etaf Rum. This is the book I knew she had in her. It’s just as brilliant and damning a portrait of a toxic marriage as Liars was, with the added generational trauma and displacement of a Palestinian family. Those are the parts that brought tears to my eyes, the glimpses of the nakba and the camps, the unspeakable loss, the traditions and meals Yara preserves even in the mountains of North Carolina. It does one another beautiful thing that Liars doesn’t do, too—it’s not so insular, it’s ultimately friendship and connection that break the spell of isolation and grief and help Yara find her way out. It’s a love story in the end, between a mother and her daughters, between two best friends, between a woman and herself.