Whatever resolve and certainty he had felt in the past few weeks had melted away. Strangely, there was some lightness in the unknowing, like a clench… - Ayelet Tsabari

On bad days, I looked at the paleness of the sky, and all I could see was how deeply fucked up everything was, how much the pain radiated from the earth, fury bubbling up like hot lava underneath the surface.
Other days, mostly at the beach, I would breathe in the saturated air and be filled with gratitude. Despite everything, this was the only home I knew. Flawed, imperfect, but home. And though my sense of belonging was fractured, still I belonged here more than anywhere else. Maybe that's why I held on to this dream of peace so desperately. I needed to believe we were heading somewhere better. If peace came, maybe we would finally be able to let out the breath we'd been holding for forty-seven years, and exhale. (chapter 19)

The day Lily meets Lana is her two-week anniversary in Israel. She's lying on her belly in the dried grass outside the apartment building she now calls home, watching insects through her macro lens. She's sweating in her faded blue jeans and Converse high-tops. Then a shadow eclipses her sun.

When you write your first book, you get to write it in a bit of a bubble. You don’t know if it will be published, as much as you hope and wish for it, you don’t really know that. It’s kind of a safer place to write. And then when you write the second book, you’re aware of readership, you’re aware of views, of an audience out there, of expectations, and it’s more work to shut that down.