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The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

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Yael, Avishag, and Lea grow up together in a tiny, dusty Israeli village, attending a high school made up of caravan classrooms, passing notes to each other to alleviate the universal boredom of teenage life. When they are conscripted into the army, their lives change in unpredictable ways, influencing the women they become and the friendship that they struggle to sustain. Yael trains marksmen and flirts with boys. Avishag stands guard, watching refugees throw themselves at barbed-wire fences. Lea, posted at a checkpoint, imagines the stories behind the familiar faces that pass by her day after day. They gossip about boys and whisper of an ever more violent world just beyond view. They drill, constantly, for a moment that may never come. They live inside that single, intense second just before danger erupts.
In a relentlessly energetic and arresting voice marked by humor and fierce intelligence, Shani Boianjiu, winner of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35,” creates an unforgettably intense world, capturing that unique time in a young woman's life when a single moment can change everything.

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

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3961 people want to read

About the author

Shani Boianjiu

5 books60 followers
Shani Boianjiu was born in 1987 in a small town on the Israel/Lebanon border, and she served in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Vice magazine, and Zoetrope: All Story. Shani is the youngest recipient ever of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Award, for which she was chosen by Nicole Krauss. She lives in Israel.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 388 reviews
Profile Image for Gilly Segal.
113 reviews12 followers
Read
March 19, 2013
In parts, searing, in parts bizarre, and on occasion, horrifying, this is one hard novel to review. I find myself wanting to say many things and also to qualify each of those things as "sort of."

I lived some version of the lives of the characters of this novel and the author herself - I, too, served in the IDF. I could see some of my own experiences reflected in those of Yael, Avishag and Lea, and the mood, the tone, the people were fabulously accurate renderings. But at the same time, much of what goes on what sort of shockingly foreign to my own past. Boianjiu beautifully captures the stark contrasts of life as an Israeli soldier - the horror and the amusement, the confidence and the soul-shattering doubt, the hours of boredom interspersed with moments of terror. This novel is one of the few accounts of army life that that I would describes as authentic and it is spectacular for that.

The characters are rather difficult to manage. I found them to be, in the main, horribly unlikeable. I don't understand the obsession in literary fiction with such dreadful characters. Flaws, yes, characters that aren't black or white, certainly - but I found the characters in this novel to be sort of detestable. That caused a certain distance from the narrative, even for those sections that were written in the first person. I might have read less clinically and felt more had the characters had more redeeming qualities or even moments.

I will also say I suspect the non-linear narrative will trouble many readers - and I'm sort of one of them. It can be a challenge to follow the often disjointed episodic nature of the text. Sometimes it read a little stream of conscious. I found myself wishing many times for a more standard narrative structure. I also think the story would have packed just as much punch had it not forayed into the minds of other, one-off supporting characters quite so often. Or even at all. The book jacket contributes to this paritcular struggle by focusing on the three main characters - which is sort of a gross over-simplification of this book.

It is an extraordinary accomplishment that Boianjiu wrote this novel in English, as it is not her first language. However, that also leads to some awkwardness. Not knowing she drafted in English, I thought at first it was a rather unsophisticated translation and that, too, pulled me out of the narrative.

I sometimes felt the novel was too self aware. The Literatti feting the book would probably be horrified at this comparison but - all those years, watching American Idol, I never really got why Simon would call certain performances indulgent. Now I do. Often, this book was sort of indulgent, trying a little too hard to be meaningful and obvious in its attempt to be "literature."

Had I reviewed the novel part way through, I might have stopped there and said this novel is sort of disturbing and sort of brilliant and stop with a recommendation to read it.

But at the end of the novel comes one of the most horrifying and disturbing sequences I can remember reading in recent years. It is not the horror of what happens that disturbed me - it is how the characters and the novel itself handle it. I won't say what occurs so as not to spoil, so forgive the vague talking around topic here. But I found myself baffled - did it really even happen? I don't believe books are behavior manuals - they shouldn't be held to a standard of showing people how they should behave. All that being said, why oh why did the women react the way they did? How could they, given their circumstances, not do something differently? When one of the characters even makes the suggestion that was raging in my head as I read, another blew it off in a line or two. The book glossed over this huge and horrifying thing in a few pages toward the end. It's clear the novel is an exploration of how army life impacts a person - but how could that incident not be just an huge an impact? Why didn't it get more than a few pages? What was the purpose of including that incident? What did we learn about the characters or the situation or anything? I didn't get that section. I didn't see the reactions as authentic for the characters. I didn't find the episode to be powerful or meaningful. I frankly found it be a shameful and offensive and insulting representation of women. It sort of destroyed the book for me.

Despite my mixed reactions, I certainly have a lot to say about this book. I'm sure, as I continue to ponder it, more will arise. Maybe that's enough of a reason to read it - it won't leave you speechless. But on the whole, this isn't quite the rave review I thought I would be writing.
Profile Image for Julie Ehlers.
1,117 reviews1,597 followers
May 24, 2016
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid may be one of the most unique and unforgettable novels I’ve ever read. I think it’s first and foremost a coming-of-age tale of a few young women, but it also provides a lot of vivid details about the experience of being drafted into the Israeli army. There’s definitely a level of heightened reality to much of this, but given the circumstances these young women find themselves in, this is entirely appropriate and effective and occasionally adds some welcome humor to the proceedings. Some of the more extreme examples of heightened reality didn’t entirely work for me, like the one where the soldiers return to their former base for a nightmarish reunion, but on the whole I was deeply impressed by the voices, language, and plotlines of The People of Forever Are Not Afraid. Its author was ridiculously young at the time of publication; I am honestly a bit frightened to think of all the fierce writing she may produce over the course of her career—and I mean that as a compliment.
Profile Image for Jill.
Author 2 books2,035 followers
August 24, 2012
First a big thanks to FirstReads for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this debut book. The opinions below are totally my own:

I rarely start off a book review about what a book isn’t, but the blurbs on this book are so misleading that I felt compelled to do so. This book is not about teenage girls who “gossip about boys and whisper of an ever more violent world.” Nor is it likely to be reviewed as a political statement by anyone who doesn’t have an extreme one-sided view.

What it is about are three teenage girls – Yael, Avishnag and Lea – who are on the cusp of girlhood-turned-adulthood, when they are already fighting: for self-image, independence, and acceptance. To all this, add a whole other dimension of uncertainty and potential danger as they mark this passage as soldiers in the Israeli Army. One reflects, “During her school years she had felt like every minute was part of a race. Get that grade. That boy. Buy that shirt…But the army was a numbing respite from that eighteen-year-long, breathless race.”

There are some who will likely question the author’s blurring of these three girls. Indeed, there are many point-of-view shifts coupled with rapid-fire language, which can leave a reader feeling a little adrift. My belief is that this was a very deliberate choice; in Israel, there is no certainty and situations can rapidly shift from boring to life-threatening in one moment. During those times, individuality does blur and a greater sense of unity emerges. So it is with the girls.

The stories – and these are, in effect, interwoven stories – are riveting and often horrifying. One of the young girls serves involuntarily in the Israeli military police; she creates an imaginary life for a Palestinian construction worker whom she sees daily, believing that he, too, is living a life that was foisted upon him. Her fantasies are interrupted by a grim reality. In another instance, one of the girls must bear witness to a forced prostitution ring, yet is unable to stand up to her superior.

This is a searing, often disturbing book that does not shy away from some explosive issues: suicide, abortion, rape, and inhumanities. It also provides a totally unique perspective of young women in the Israeli military: girl-women who follow a complicated guidebook of rules, have emotionally complex interactions with the Palestinians they encounter at checkpoints, and receive harsh awakenings.

As one girl states, “I just understood that there are people who live or the fight; for the moments before you lose or win. People for whom this world is not enough; they want ice water in their veins, beauty at any cost, climbing out of ditches under gunfire, exploding necklaces of grenades…And then I knew: those fascinating people – I was never one of them.” Perhaps…but these girls are fascinating in their own right.
Profile Image for The Book Maven.
506 reviews67 followers
November 1, 2012
I think my disappointment in this novel has much to do with what I enjoy in a novel, and little to do with the quality of the novel itself. I'm pretty darned intelligent, but I prefer a story which grabs and sucks you in, that is intelligible, that is smart and challenging and beautiful and interesting. I don't care for experimental, disjointed, and/or stream-of-consciousness writing, and "The People of Forever" was certainly all those things. I don't mind a story that is difficult to read, but please, make it enjoyable. The writing in this book was good; the storytelling was not.

The author tried to "show, not tell", and tried a little too hard--showing to such an extent that one's not really sure what exactly she's showing us. The descriptions, motivations, and characters are abstruse. Intelligent writing, yes, but not consistently gripping. And really, too smart for its own good. Very highfallutin at times, and intellectually smug.

I read this book because I wanted to learn about Israeli culture and customs--there was a "teachable moment" opportunity in this book, particularly given our politicized views and misconceptions about Israel and the Middle East, but the writing style of this book is largely inaccessible to many. In other words: I can see this being a book that is academically successful, but not commercially. Not an enjoyable read, and it didn't have anything to do with the ugly brutality.

(Plus, I found all of the main characters to be pretty much just big jerks, with unfathomable motivations.)
Profile Image for Andrew.
Author 24 books62 followers
September 16, 2012
And They Say Russian Roulette

I was on the landline the whole night talking to Avishag. All of the other girls stayed at Lea’s party. She made people stay, even after they heard something was up with Dan. I didn’t care about that. And I didn’t care that my mom could hear me or that my sister could hear me or that my dad could hear me. At first the thing that was up was that Dan hit his head so Avishag was worried, and then the thing was that he was badly injured in the head and in the hospital but Avishag’s mom told her not to go, and then the thing was that he was accidentally shot in the head, and then the final thing was that he and a couple of classmates went to the cellular tower hill and they called this girl, or that, but then they played Russian roulette because no one answered. I mean, no one but those in the town had cell reception and almost everyone was at Lea’s party, and that was the thing. At six in the morning the thing was that Dan had died.

But I don’t believe any of these rumors. I think he just went up that hill and blew his fucking brains out all by himself.


***

Set primarily in a small Israeli village near the Lebanese border, Shani Boianjiu’s debut novel The People of Forever Are Not Afraid charts the emotional deconstruction of three young women—Yael, Avishag, and Lea—from 2006 to 2012. The narrative explores their lives in the period before the Second Lebanon War (July 12 to September 8, 2006), as caustic, disaffected teenagers in a high school made up of caravan classrooms, to conscription in the Israeli army, the conflict itself, and the aftermath and how it impacts their lives.

The novel is divided into three tonally distinct parts: in the first part, we’re introduced to the three friends. We learn their histories, witness arguments and crushes that either drove them apart or brought them closer together. Boianjiu offers early glimpses of trauma still to come through Avishag’s brother, Dan, and how military service changed him, turned him into something less than he’d previously been. Their families are all uniquely strained, which is reflected in their differing personalities—Yael, the most even-handed and flirtatious of the three; Avishag, who seems to be losing her grip on reality, feeling more and more alone with each day that passes; Lea, who bears the nickname “princess” and is the only one of the three that could be classified as “spoiled”.

In the novel’s second, and most captivating part, Boianjiu introduces a host of new characters, each of them peripheral in some way to Yael, Avishag, or Lea. We see, through their eyes and those surrounding them, the gradual acceptance of their respective military placements: Avishag posted as a guard near the Egypt-Israeli border; Yael trained as a marksman and weapons expert who, despite her position, never loses the more flirtatious aspects of her personality; and Lea, posted against her desires, as a member of the Israeli military police. It is in this part that Boianjiu expertly and realistically dismantles each of her three protagonists—in startling ways, leading to sometimes unexpected and disturbing results.

The final and shortest part serves almost as an extended epilogue—though their stories have not come to a close, their lives have in many ways climaxed, and the three women, together again, are faced with accepting what their experiences in the military had done to them—and what they had done, to themselves and others, as a result.

Structurally, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid is an ever-widening lens. The first part is told entirely from first-person perspectives, with each chapter shifting voice between the three young protagonists. Though Avishag and Lea are both given chapters of their own to help develop their personalities, the strongest and most accessible voice is Yael’s. This feels intentional, as Boianjiu expands the novel’s scope in the second part, shifting the perspective from first to third person for all but Yael. This serves three purposes: first, to further cement Yael as the medium, the voice of our entry into their worlds; second, to illustrate, by pushing them away from the reader, limiting their internal dialogue, how service and the incidents that happen along the way are separating the three, both from their youths and from one another; and third, to play upon the reader’s expectations—by forcing us to be removed from characters we’d come to know, to some small degree, and to look upon them again as strangers in the making. In the final part, it’s only Yael’s internal voice we are partially privy to, and though she has changed, it is how they have changed as a unit, as friends, that becomes most apparent.

The transformations achieved along the way are earned, and accentuated through subtle, confident means: the change in language as Lea, having experienced a certain amount of authority and control, experiences maturity, but also, through things witnessed during her time as a member of the military police, finds herself capable of malevolent, vengeful acts; how Avishag and her father swap seats while he tries to teach her to drive, while their shared history reveals a gulf that has always existed, with Avishag, at different points in her life, occupying two separate sides of the same gulf while her father seems forever trapped in the middle, unable to fully comprehend the degree to which they have, symbolically, swapped ages.

Shani Boianjiu was herself a member of the Israeli Defense Force for two years. This background is certainly visible in the quality and concision of both language used between the girls, and the descriptions of weaponry, bases, and the girls’ small village. The world presented is wholly believable, yet neither the aspects of the military introduced, nor the politics behind the conflict, ever threaten to overwhelm the narrative or distract the reader from Yael, Avishag, Lea, and their journey. The People of Forever Are Not Afraid is an engrossing, searing read. These three friends took me by surprise in ways I’d not expected. Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Elisabeth Watson.
59 reviews52 followers
June 13, 2012
I can't begin to say how sad I was to watch the unity and gravitational center of this book start to crumble and then sort of whirl apart around half-way through. I'd been looking forward to this book for weeks before Editors Buzz at BEA, and it was the only ARC I walked away with.

For the first few chapters, my excitement was totally justified. I should assure potential readers that that first excitement was never fully undermined. I'm not an expert on these things, but I suspect that PEOPLE OF FOREVER suffers from youth and a not-strict-enough editorial hand, but little else. Boianjiu possesses an intensity of vision and an understanding of different ways of being human that make me very eager to grow up alongside her. There are authors (eg George Elliot) who startle the reader with their compassion for their characters, who inspire compassion through the desire to emulate that author's compassionate vision. Then there are the authors who melt away but present one with characters who are clear and complicated and for whom the greatest source of compassion is--effortlessly--the reader herself. Lea, Avishag, and Yael made me love them for themselves--not for Boianjiu's sake or example--and made me ache to love them even more. Boianjiu's characters convince one that seeing all sides of everything can be easy as breathing, and there's nothing showy about her...some sort of vast humility and effacement echoes through the whole book.

I wonder if this vast humility is one reason the narrative starts flying apart. I'm always suspicious of novels switching too many voices (not characters, but more like: first person, first person, third person, first person, third! second! sort of thing), and things get exponentially more scattered compared to the control and conviction of the book's first half. Things happen plot-wise that Boianjiu doesn't prepare us to find useful, to be moved by. I'm all for surprise, but the reader needs to have been given tools in order for that surprise to do its work. I almost had a feeling the author suddenly became afraid of what she had in front of her, of its force--and to efface herself she effaced the story? I don't know.

But it's something worth a read, and I look forward to seeing Ms. Boianjiu find a center to her work and she continues to practice.
Profile Image for Trish at Between My Lines.
1,137 reviews330 followers
February 5, 2016
This review was originally posted on [Between My Lines]I'm making a big effort this year to read books that expose me to cultures and views that might necessarily be what I agree with.  And The People of Forever are not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu falls into that experiment.  Sadly though it's not one that paid off for me.



I had a lot of issues with this book. The setting was why I wanted to read it in the first place as it was so unique and diverse. I'm interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as it's such a human tragedy and it feels like the world is ignoring it. And the setting for this one is not the one where my sympathies lie so I was really interested in getting that point of view. And the setting worked well, it was shocking and violent and I got a strong sense of place while I was reading it.

On the negative side though, the book was all over the place. It feels like nobody edited it and half the time I was totally confused while reading it. There are 3 points of view  and it jumped from one to the other without warning. Often I wouldn't even realise for a page or two and that really interrupted the flow of the book for me. The timeline was also very jarring and again, there was no chapter headings or warnings that a time shift was happening.

The characters are not likeable girls and I found it hard spending time with them. In the end I was just glad to finish this one and admit that it just wasn't for me. Too disjointed, too random and far too hard to interpret. To be honest, I'm not really sure what I just read.

 



 

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
Profile Image for Repellent Boy.
623 reviews642 followers
November 13, 2019
Israel, en la actualidad. Tres chicas: Yael, Lea y Avishag. Al acabar el instituto, deberán hacer el servicio militar obligatorio. Descubrirán esa cara de la guerra, que muchas veces la gente de a pie no saben. Y además, verán una guerra muy diferente siendo mujer. O, al menos, esa parecía la intención.

Esta libro empezó regular y ha ido cayendo en picado durante toda la lectura. Me ha costado acabarlo, y he tratado de encontrarle ese jugo que quería, y no ha sido posible. Ha habido algunas episodios que me parecieron interesantes, sobre todo por la cultura de la guerra de Israel, y la problemática con Egipto. Pero el caso es que pensaba que iba a ver esa visión de la mujer en la guerra, pero no he terminado de encontrarlo.

Las protagonistas no tenían voces diferenciables, parecían las tres iguales. A veces, era difícil diferenciarlas a ellas, y al resto de personajes que iban saliendo. Además, la autora narraba los hechos, en boca de sus protagonistas, de una manera tan fría, que aunque pasaran cosas graves (como muertes o violaciones), no surtía impacto. Quizás era la intención de la autora, esa frialdad, pero a mí no me llegó. Ha sido una pena porque le tenía muchas ganas y unas grandes expectativas. Lástima.
Profile Image for Loredana (Bookinista08).
762 reviews329 followers
January 14, 2016
Thank God it's over! Nu a fost o carte rea, dar mă aşteptam la altceva. Mă aşteptam la un fir narativ logic, nu o amestecătură de mumbo jumbo postmodernist care să asigure lauda unui cerc restrâns de critici literari cu beţe în fund. Subiectul a fost raw, Shani putea să distrugă cititorul, să-l arunce în aer, să-l demoleze. În schimb, n-a făcut decât să-l ameţească, să-l prostească cu "uite fata, nu e fata, uite intriga, nu e intriga". Obositor, pur şi simplu obositor... Ce dor mi-e să mai citesc ceva de Tan Twan Eng...
Profile Image for Sleepless Dreamer.
895 reviews384 followers
October 29, 2022
Sometimes, being an Israeli leftist means wanting to scream at Palestinians, "don't fucking commit terror attacks targeting the home of a radical right leader 4 days before an election because you will radicalize people and create even more support and validity for his opinions". Ugh.

This book was not that great, review to come
Profile Image for Yvonne.
742 reviews40 followers
April 7, 2013
There's an interesting story somewhere in this book but it's buried under a lot of poor, confusing writing. No surprise then this is an award winner as difficult to read books seems to equal brilliant in some people's minds. But for me it's just a shame since I was interested in reading about what it's like for those Israeli women conscripted into the army at an early age and I wanted to come away from this book with more than one word, miserable.

It did start off promising enough. We meet the three young women when they're in high school together studying Israeli history. They're learning things like about PLO, SAM, IAF, & RPG children. RPG children were 9 or 10 year old Palestinian children who shot at Israeli soldiers but as Yael explains, RPG are powerful missiles with a backblast: " So one RPG child held the launcher on his shoulder, and behind him stood another RPG child, on his toes, holding from the back. And so when the RPG was launched, the child from the back's head caught fire, and then his shoulders, soon his sandals too, if he had them. No one told the RPG children any better. No one talked to them, no one told them anything, not the children who held it from the front and not the children who held it from the back, but one thing that is very, very interesting is that many times the child from the front would jump on his burning friend and hug him, and this increased the casualties in a significant way, that one child did not burn alone."
And just like that we get a sense of a different kind of history for these Israeli girls.

The book then branches off and separates the stories of the three women, Yael, Avishag & Lea and their different army service. But it doesn't just stay with them. Instead it picks up the thoughts of any of the random side players that are in the story. It's not a linear story. It also jumps from the past to the present & back. One chapter decides to be about person a and person b. There's a lot of stream of consciousness and you can't tell sometimes what's real & what's not. There's supposedly something horrible that happens to the girls at the end but it's written in such euphemistic language you couldn't really tell what was happening & whether it was real or not.

There were some good stories like the one with Lea at the checkpoint and making deals with the demonstrators so they could get publicity they needed. It was interesting to see the almost relationships that develop between the people you're guarding against . It's almost an uneasy truce. But these are just moments in the story and it doesn't really connect. They're just a series of vignettes.

This story was originally written in English which is the author's second language. This may explain some of the difficulties in comprehending the story. I was never engaged with the characters as the three of their voices were similar. It doesn't help that they're not really that likable. In the end, I just didn't connect with the writing style and just wanted to get through the book. It wasn't a DNF but it was close.
Profile Image for Esil.
1,118 reviews1,486 followers
August 13, 2013
I think I echo other readers in my reaction to this book. The idea of writing a novel based on the experience of being a female soldier in Israel is a great one. So I was really looking forward to reading this book. So I couldn't help being a bit disappointed with the actual book. But much of my reaction is based on what I anticipated the book would or should be. On its own, leaving anticipation aside, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid is a quirky and at times powerful depiction of late adolescents/early adults muddling through in a complicated world. At the end of the day, I like parts of it but can't say that I loved it or felt I could really understand the characters being depicted.
Profile Image for Augusta.
35 reviews
March 9, 2016
It's not very often you get a female's perspective on war in literature but this is probably one of the best books I read this year. THE PEOPLE OF FOREVER ARE NOT AFRAID follows 3 friends through their final year of high school and their time spent in the Israeli military. Powerful imagery, beautiful language, thought-provoking. There are repetitious bits and some changing perspectives that might throw some people off but I thought it helped add depth to the story. Don't miss this one.
Profile Image for Ayelet Waldman.
Author 30 books40.3k followers
December 14, 2013
I feel like I know nothing about Israel. This book blew my mind completely.
Profile Image for Michael.
850 reviews635 followers
February 8, 2017
Lea, Avishag and Yael grow up in a small town on the Israel/Lebanon border leaving normal teenage lives. The People of Forever Are Not Afraid tells the story of these three normal Israeli girls from passing notes in school, talking about boys to turning eighteen and being conscripted into the army. Winner of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” authors to watch list in 2011, Shani Boianjiu’s debut novel is a coming of age novel unlike any before. Growing up in this intense war torn world changes everything, even for three normal teenage girls.

First thing I would like to say is I was hugely impressed with The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, I never expected to find a New Adult novel that offers so many different elements. While this seems to be marketed as a Young/New Adult novel, I think this is because the old “coming of age” formula seems to go hand and hand with these two genres. Though this is so much different; these three girls are plucked from their normal teenage lives, put into the army and forced to grow up rather quickly.

There are some really interesting themes throughout this novel. Firstly there are the major themes of growing up as an Israeli girl and conscription, and Shani Boianjiu is the voice of experience here; at the age of 18, she entered the Israeli Defence Forces and served for two years. So you get the sense that maybe this novel is semi-autobiographical but not knowing much about the author I wonder which of the three girl’s best resembles her. Though I have a feeling that Lea, Avishag and Yael all have an element of Boianjiu in them; I like how she has the three different personalities within the book to help show the how war really effects a person.

This brings us to the theme of War; while for the most of the book they are living in a perpetual state of war, the conflict between Israel and Lebanon still puts them into real danger. Though the reader has to ask themselves if eighteen too young to deal with war; they are still in a state of self-discovery when they are thrown into such an extreme situation. I know it is part of their heritage but when you talk about war and even RPG children (“children who tried to shoot RPGs at soldiers and ended up burning each other because they were uninformed, and children”) you really have to wonder how old is old enough to deal with war.

Finally, the book looks at the influence western society has on the Middle Eastern culture; I’m sure girls thought about boys and sex but there is a definite changing that comes through in the novel. References to Dawson’s Creek and Mean Girls and the whole attitude towards relationships (breaking up every week) and sex really feels more like something from an American teen drama than an Israeli town. I don’t know much about their culture but I know enough about pop-culture and the difficulties that western society has on Muslim and Jewish heritage to notice this real culture clash.

The People of Forever Are Not Afraid really is an interesting New Adult novel; it is smart and thought provoking and yet it’s really funny as well. I remember the cheesy lines made me chuckle like the idea of a mother not wanting her daughter to have a party because she was worried that her friends will break her hymen. All these elements seem to work together to produce a novel that is both easy to read and unlike anything I’ve read before.

I was never sure what to make of The People of Forever Are Not Afraid but I’m glad I had a chance to read this novel. It’s a debut novel that shows us that Shani Boianjiu is an author to watch in the future. It’s not without its flaws, the repetitiveness got to me a little but in the end all the good aspects of this book outshined any problems. It’s the type of novel that made me want to turn back to page one and start reading it again. I’m not a fan of Young Adult and New Adult novels in general but I can’t help but recommend this one to all readers.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
Profile Image for Sara Zovko.
356 reviews90 followers
August 22, 2021
Ova me knjiga iscrpila do maksimuma. Stil pisanja , glavni likovi, ništa mi nije sjelo. Autorica piše u prvom licu, trećem licu, ima tu svega i onda u jednom trenutku više ne znaš o kome i čemu zapravo čitaš niti što je sa time uopće željela postići. Već dugo nisam naišla na knjigu čiji me stil toliko umarao. Natjerala sam se pročitati do kraja, tema je zapravo sjajna i uvijek aktualna. Tri glavna lika, tri najbolje prijateljice i njihovi dani u vojsci i nakon nje, ali uz pisanje likovi mi također nisu sjeli. Umjesto suosjećanja djelovale su mi odbojno.
Profile Image for Brittany.
188 reviews9 followers
September 14, 2012
I won this book for free from the Goodread's First Reads giveaway.

I am very thankful that I won this book and received the opportunity to read something that I normally wouldn't.
This book involves 3 Israeli teenage girls. They were drafted into the army and all worked at different postings. The first chapter intrigued me; it involved violence, a suicide, and a mother leaving her family. The next few chapters after that were not as interesting and it took awhile for me to get through. Once I got into Part 2 of the book I had a hard time putting it down. There were some very interesting chapters then. My favourite character to read was Lea's perspective: she witnessed some very horrible things in the army. I also liked reading about her life after the army when she moved to Tel Aviv.
Yael also had some interesting perspectives and I enjoyed some of her chapters.
The second last chapter of the book was really sad and extremely shocking and made me very thankful to live in a country like Canada. It is so sad to see what the Israel woman have to face every day of their lives and I understand why all three girls are very cynical and numb to their lives (especially Avishag).
Some of the difficulties I found with the book was:
1. It switches between the characters perspectives too much (every new chapter was someone else speaking in the first person). It was confusing at times.
2. The timeline of the book was not smooth. Events from different years was randomly thrown in, many events were repeated numerous times, it skipped years and I wasn't sure what year we were in, etc. At one point they were going into the Lebanon war in 2006 and then next chapter I had no idea what time we were in.
3. The ending was left very open. We go from the extremely shocking event to the ending chapter that seemed out of place to me. I would of liked to know what became of the girls. There should of been more closure.

- But overall, this was a very interesting read! I did like the book and am again very happy to have won it.
Profile Image for Roger DeBlanck.
Author 7 books145 followers
September 27, 2016
Shani Boianjiu’s outstanding debut novel entrances you with its vision and understanding of modern war. The central story chronicles the lives of three teenage Israeli girls—Yael, Avishag, and Lea—all of them seniors in high school and soon to be conscripted into the army. Brilliantly paced and structured, the novel allows for each of the girl’s distinctive perspectives to emerge. Oftentimes transitioning between the visceral and the surreal, the layering of stories within stories and the interconnectedness among characters over time, place, and events make for an exhilarating narrative that stuns and shocks with the unveiling of each of the girls’ experiences.

Boianjiu addresses the fear and uncertainty of the girls and relates how their teetering despair fuels rebellion against their confusion and loneliness. As challenges surface throughout their two years of military service and beyond, their need to feel alive and meaningful in the world becomes obsessive. This need simmers with urgency and gathers into a searing force to confront the outrage of injustice and inhumanity and to achieve their desire for independence. The People of Forever Are Not Afraid is a stellar literary work, full of energy and also humor. It is fierce, enthralling, eye-opening, and ultimately life-affirming as it charts the lives of the three girls on the cusp of womanhood and a future for themselves in which they yearn for direction in their lives.
Profile Image for Sharon.
753 reviews
September 8, 2012
Gorgeous and raw. I hardly can write this review without hyperbole. Interlocking perspectives that are as distinct as possible for characters going through the process of getting to know themselves in the midst of an inexplicable war that severs them from their hopes and humanity. Yet the perspectives also blend into the beautiful commons of characters who grew up together and are now facing the same puzzling and perverse military duties. And when you think the characters - these women, brave and flawed - have won peace with themselves - and an uneasy peace with their future - a gutwrenching chapter descends upon them, told with the flattest of tones, as if to say what else would you expect, reader? An amazing book, ripping, stunning, unfair, and important.
Profile Image for Erika.
821 reviews70 followers
Read
July 13, 2020
En roman som nästan känns som en novellsamling eftersom den består av enskilda berättelser som var för sig känns ganska sammanknutna även om personerna återkommer boken igenom. Jag tycker om Boianjius sätt att skriva och uppskattar att få ta del av de här unga kvinnornas berättelser och att få uppleva en glimt av att leva mitt i den här segslitna konflikten. Det ska sägas att det här är en berättelse som börjar mitt i och som inte har några ambitioner att ge en helhetsbild eller av att tala för någondera sidan.
Profile Image for Erin.
3,814 reviews468 followers
May 22, 2016
If YOU are a boy and you go in the army, one thing that can happen is that you can die.The other thing that can happen is that you can live. If you are a girl and you go into the army you probably won't die. You might send reservists to die in a war. You might suppress demonstrations at checkpoints. But you probably won't die. A lot of things can happen to you after. You could get a job. Go on a trip. Go to university. Get married. Move back in with your parents. ...We were girls. I know we were just girls. We did what we did in the army, and then it was over.



I'm glad that I re-read this book and I do stand by many statements I made in my original review. The writing is somewhat disjointed and the three style narrative is sometimes sabotaged by other voices that are quite jarring.

What does change in my opinion is that I was able to stay interested in the lives of all three young women and I was able to read the book from cover to cover with little hesitation.







_----------Original Review of July 2013---------


" Try not to judge us". This is one of the lines from the book and I am going to try and follow it. This is written about women in the Israeli army by a young woman who served two years in that army herself. "The People of Forever Are Not Afraid" is raw with emotion and there is no sugar coating of events as they unfold in the book. This is one snapshot of life in todays Israel which cannot really be understood by someone like me, a North American, far removed from Middle Eastern conflicts.

The story is mainly about three young women, Yael, Avishag, and Lea. I felt that Yael's voice was the most distinct and she had me captivated at the very beginning. I thought that the author had a great beginning and settled in for a good read. However, when it came time for the other two young ladies to take over- I lost interest and it was hard to complete the book. In fact, at page 139, I had to put down the book for twenty four hours and read something else. It was hard to follow these women's stories through the course of the book. I ended up not really liking Yael and Avishag but grew to understand best the hell that Lea was put through. Only because the author did such a great job of helping the readers to "see" it.


I really wanted to LOVE this book because it is getting plenty of praise from the book world. Maybe all of these book reviewers have a more in depth understanding of Israel's politics in the contemporary world? I found myself not really understanding a lot of comments made by characters through the book. So, I am guessing that the author is anticipating that her audience will actually be able to pick up on all these subtle remarks.

All in all, the book was a hit and miss for me but still left some strong impressions.
Profile Image for Joe.
164 reviews
August 8, 2012
Stories about the army generally tend to fall into one of two categories: Either farcical MASH-style parodies, or dark, serious “war is hell,” types.

Budding Israeli writer Shani Boianjiu’s disjointed debut novel about three female IDF soldiers, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid (Hogarth), out next month, definitely leans towards the latter.

At the start of the book, Yael, Avishag and Lea are three friends graduating high school and anxious about their upcoming compulsory stint in the Israeli Defence Forces.

Yael is assigned to a border post near Hebron where young Arab children steal everything including the fence that surrounds the camp.

Avishag joins the only combat infantry unit for women and is assigned to the Sinai border where she spends her days flirting and watching refugees sneak across the Egyptian border on her computer screen.

Lea, meanwhile, works at a Hebron checkpoint, monitoring Palestinian day workers crossing into Israel. She belongs to the blue-bereted military police which she hates, and is the least satisfying of all possible assignments. “It was a unit designed for stupid, poor people.”

Boianjiu, who was born in 1987 in Kfar Vradim, a small town similar to the one the girls in this book were born in, has been published in several other magazines. She is the youngest recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award. She is undoubtedly a talented writer but on this, her first novel, her youthful, unstructured writing needs some direction and a guiding hand.

There are several moments of brilliance,but the constantly-changing point of view which switches from one chapter to the next between that of each of the three girls gets annoying really quickly. They all speak with that same detached, cynical, anti-establishment voice of a young woman, that makes it hard to distinguish at times who is speaking.

However, there’s a lot of promise in The People Are Not Afraid. The author’s stream of consciousness, conversational prose can make the dark and somber scenes witty and ironic.

At 25, Boianjiu is an exciting, youthful writer, not afraid to challenge heavy themes, and there’s no doubt we’ll be hearing from her again. A Hebrew version is slated to be published in Israel later next year.

Read more here: http://www.cjnews.com/books-and-autho...
Profile Image for Magdelanye.
1,957 reviews245 followers
September 18, 2018
If L. was having a hard time...it was not because of the past....the problem was the future of the past. It existed outside our heads. p211

What this says to me is that the present, if not actually grounded in the past, is riddled with its ramifications. This may serve as an anchor to reality, so that the power of the present is not overwhelmed by a plethora of ephemera. We tend to cling to indicators of our identity,which
provide the continuity of our POV. Assuming another identity, whether for professional reasons or
for survival, challenges this continuity, and it is not surprising that people who are so displaced, have issues with reality, if that even exists with any stability.

This book claims to be a novel, capitalizing on the connections between the characters who we follow in alternating stories that leapfrog between past and present. Considered this way, in spite of the many provocative insights available to the attentive reader, the arc of the story is fractured.
The strong writing of the opening is not carried through.

Considered as a collection of interlinked short stories relegates the weak ending to merely one of the less successful stories without spoiling the whole book. Yes, I was somewhat disappointed but its hardly logical to expect that a book unafraid to examine an untenable situation should also contain the solution.

In fact, I assumed this book was science fiction when I grabbed it off a display shelf at the library.
What a surprise to find out it that it is an intense exploration of coming of age in a war zone and the devastating cumulative effects of military occupation.



Profile Image for Lilybird .
25 reviews
April 21, 2023
Wow. I mean, this is definitely one of the worst books. Ever. I have three major complaints, so please sit back, grab a box of popcorn, and enjoy.
1) IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE A BOOK WITH DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES, PLEASE TELL US WHO THE NARRATOR IS. Honestly, this book was so much work to read because ALL OF THE PERSPECTIVES SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME.
2)This author tried sooooooo hard to make this sound deep and mature and like she was this sophisticated, posh person. But it just came off so (for lack of a better word) dumb. For example, one of the characters mentions that some days are like onions. But instead of me saying “wow that was so enlightening”, it was more like “oh, that’s kind of irrelevant and weird”
3) THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART! This book had absolutely no plot, no character development of any kind, and was not one coherent book but rather a tiny snippets of sort of interesting stories that were jammed together in one book. Sometimes the author includes snippets that are not relevant to the story in literally any way. And sometimes the author introduces a really important and interesting snippet, but then never talks about it again. Take for example Lea having a man tied up in her room. Yeah, we never hear about that man ever again. Also these characters literally never change, they go into the army idiots and come out of the army idiots.
BONUS POINT) This novel was supposed to be about the struggles of young girls in the army, but honestly they spent most of the time hooking up with various boys.
ANYWHO, thanks for reading this review. Don’t read the book.
Profile Image for Julie.
1,468 reviews133 followers
July 5, 2012
This was the one book I was so eagerly anticipating this summer, especially after hearing the editor sing its praises at the Book Expo America Editor’s Buzz Panel. Considering my enthusiasm of Israeli history, I was excited about the premise of three girls’ experiences during their compulsory military service. Instead of a well-crafted, engaging narrative, what I found was unstructured stream-of-consciousness anecdotes, constantly changing perspectives, and disjointed prose. Very disappointing.

The perspectives of Yael, Avishag and Lea are difficult to differentiate. When they take turns narrating in 1st person, it’s hard to distinguish who is speaking, and they often don’t identify themselves right away. Then once I got used to a particular voice, there would be another perspective change, even to 3rd person, and I found this very disorienting. Most exasperating was that there was not a smooth story. Chapters would just address a particular event or idea, then all of a sudden it would be a year later and the situation would be dramatically different. It didn’t help that I didn’t feel an emotional connection to any of the girls at any point. I just couldn’t care about their miserable experiences in the military and how it ruined their lives. The biggest let-down was that the end was left completely unresolved. It was one of the most unsatisfying conclusions I had ever read. There were some minor redeeming qualities, but those are overshadowed by my utter lack of enjoyment reading this book.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.
Profile Image for Meteori.
320 reviews11 followers
July 22, 2017
Postoji riječ koje ne volim da upotrebim kada mi se nešto ne sviđa, ali kada pomislim na ovu knjigu samo mi je ta riječ na pameti. Fuj!
Ova knjiga nema veze sa zdravom pameti. Kao da je neko skupio četiri žene sa veoma velikim viškom slobodnog vremena i veoma velikim manjkom pameti i natjerao sebe da posluša baš svaku nebulozu koje imaju da kažu.
Kompletna knjiga je nepovezana, nema priču. Taman čovjek pomisli da će se radnja razviti, a ona se naglo prekine i krene nekim nepovezanim tokom. I nije mi jasan pisac koji kao da opravdava silovanja i sve ružno što se dešava ženama kao najnormalniju stvar, kao da to treba tako da bude.
Čitanje nečeg ružičastog bi bio blagoslov u odnosu na ovo.
Profile Image for Lauren.
1,577 reviews94 followers
October 4, 2012
This was a grim read but one I'd still recommend. I appreciated rather than enjoyed the story, the relationships between the three girls, the utter boredom and despair of the town they lived in by the Lebanese border (to Jewify the Galilee in the words of one of the girls), the almost casual violence of their time in the army, the checkpoints, the border patrols, the hostility towards Mizrahi Jews in Israel, and the rampant sexism expressed in so much of their culture. It kind of falls apart toward the end, though there were some chapters that moved me to tears.

I'll be watching for more from Boianjui but it's a tough tough book.
Profile Image for Josh Friedlander.
818 reviews132 followers
August 23, 2014
I found much to relate to, but this book was a little disappointing. Boianjiu is fond of hyperbole and as the book progresses allows this to interfere more and more with the strict realism which is so compelling. The fantasies of the characters, and the violence that they witness, become an increasingly large part of the book, until the levels of violence (sexual and otherwise) become implausible and just feel like showboating. Five stars for the first chapter; one star for the last third, which reads like an undergrad creative writing assignment badly in need of an editor. Still, it's exciting to read fresh, original Israeli fiction, from a promising author barely out of college.
Profile Image for Natasa.
1,407 reviews6 followers
January 3, 2019
 I could not get into this story. The characters were self-absorbed, vapid, and not likable. I saw them as petty and foolish. Nothing with the story made it easy for me to read and forget about enjoying it.
Profile Image for Erin Crane.
1,127 reviews5 followers
March 22, 2022
I was surprised I enjoyed this so much given its lower rating. I looked through the complaints in the reviews and it seems to be about 1) the disjointed structure 2) the characterization of the 3 lead women and 3) the darkness of the content. I can see why people might not like those things, but for whatever reason it worked for me!

This is more of a collection of connected short stories told generally in a linear order. It’s very minimal on the details of the war context for the stories, but that felt completely appropriate. The focus is not on the specific war but the experience of Israeli women, and men to some degree, in their mandatory military service.

There are moments when I thought, oh this might anger Palestinians. And moments when I thought, oh this might anger Israelis. So I hope that means this book had enough self-critical content, but I couldn’t possibly be the judge of that.

The book covers the mental impact of military service in this context, including the dehumanization of others as well as oneself. It also includes boredom and humorous moments as well. It gets quite dark sometimes, though, and I couldn’t even tell you exactly what happens in the second to last chapter, but I was distressed.

Sometimes I didn’t feel like a “got” chapter or a line, but it still left me with a strong feeling, and I really enjoyed that.

Favorite quotes:
We were there to notice what the government wanted us to, dangers, but I would still only notice what I happened to notice. This was because I couldn’t realize I was a soldier. I thought I was still a person.

And I just understood that there are people who live for the fight; for the moments before you lose or win. People for whom this world is not enough; they want ice water in their veins, beauty at any cost, climbing out of ditches under gunfire, exploding necklaces of grenades. Fascinating people for whom torture is not even within the realm of imagination. And I looked at the many men on the sands. Each one of them had shoulders much wider than my own that I knew would probably do him no good in what was to come. And then I knew: those fascinating people—I was never one of them.

Imagine that you know someone is something, you know it for certain, but that person keeps on saying that they are not that thing—they deny it and deny it to no end. Is there anything you could do? There is nothing you could do.

But I am not scared enough to tell anyone, to scream. I am only scared the amount required to perhaps save my own life. Heroism has never been one of my qualities.

She could not imagine or remember any of the things she had wanted before she became a soldier, and she struggled to find things she wanted for her civilian life ahead. She guessed she must want a family or to get into a good school, but she guessed it from the data around her. She did not feel the want herself.

The instructions were written so that if the rubber bullets killed a man, it was the finger that pressed the trigger that was to blame. It must have been the finger that was to blame because the instructions had cautioned against every other thing.
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