Community Reviews
All his stories are brutally negative and frankly I feel like it's not fun to read anymore. I absolutely respect his work and it's some of the best comic book stuff you can find. But EVERY SINGLE story is a human disaster with people complaining, suffering, starving. He adores suffering. It's mostly noticeable in his Palestine books where he often even refused to interview Israelis at all as their suffering is not grand enough for him.
Firstly, of his books I'd rate them like this best to worse:
Safe Area 5
Palestine 4
Journalism 5
Paying the Land 4
War's End 4
The Fixer 4
Footnotes in Gaza 3
Of chapters in this book I'll rate it:
The Hague 5
Palestine 5
The Caucasus 4
Iraq 5
Migration 4
India 4
This one is between 4 and 5. It's still macabre and he tries to sell us misery. It's clear he knows how to write better stories. Him following IDF and American Iraq forces is his best work. On the level with Safe Area. It feels neutral and truthful. He never quite reaches this level when he writes about Palestine from a one-sided point of view anti-Israel or when he only goes into suffering like visiting African immigrants in Malta who are there illegally so clearly they have very few prospects. Yet we sorta just stick with them instead of exploring Malta overall. He's a very biased writer in some topics. But when he finally explores something properly he only stays for a few pages like going to a court for only 2 weeks or not even reinterviewing the soldiers he followed. This is just to say that only 1 book so far is truly a masterpiece everything else feels nearly there. I think this is his second or third best book. The Palestine book is a tad overrated. It's great, but so biased it feels off. This book meanwhile has his best writing on the conflict. Frankly the stories are strong and retelling strong. But we needed just 2-3 feel good stories here. Just anything. Someone got married or a had a kid. Or got a new house they love. Or someone is a volunteer worker saving lives. What he doesn't get is that he becomes very biased when he forces a story like when in Paying the Land he tried to blame Canadians for all the suffering he saw. It's just bad social science when it happens. But he's a lone writer so he makes mistakes. Here it's way fewer mistakes and it's nearly neutral at times. But too many stories feel way too similar - poverty. Poverty by itself is not a deep story.
Firstly, of his books I'd rate them like this best to worse:
Safe Area 5
Palestine 4
Journalism 5
Paying the Land 4
War's End 4
The Fixer 4
Footnotes in Gaza 3
Of chapters in this book I'll rate it:
The Hague 5
Palestine 5
The Caucasus 4
Iraq 5
Migration 4
India 4
This one is between 4 and 5. It's still macabre and he tries to sell us misery. It's clear he knows how to write better stories. Him following IDF and American Iraq forces is his best work. On the level with Safe Area. It feels neutral and truthful. He never quite reaches this level when he writes about Palestine from a one-sided point of view anti-Israel or when he only goes into suffering like visiting African immigrants in Malta who are there illegally so clearly they have very few prospects. Yet we sorta just stick with them instead of exploring Malta overall. He's a very biased writer in some topics. But when he finally explores something properly he only stays for a few pages like going to a court for only 2 weeks or not even reinterviewing the soldiers he followed. This is just to say that only 1 book so far is truly a masterpiece everything else feels nearly there. I think this is his second or third best book. The Palestine book is a tad overrated. It's great, but so biased it feels off. This book meanwhile has his best writing on the conflict. Frankly the stories are strong and retelling strong. But we needed just 2-3 feel good stories here. Just anything. Someone got married or a had a kid. Or got a new house they love. Or someone is a volunteer worker saving lives. What he doesn't get is that he becomes very biased when he forces a story like when in Paying the Land he tried to blame Canadians for all the suffering he saw. It's just bad social science when it happens. But he's a lone writer so he makes mistakes. Here it's way fewer mistakes and it's nearly neutral at times. But too many stories feel way too similar - poverty. Poverty by itself is not a deep story.
