Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In this Romeo and Julietinspired verse novel set in present-day Israel, teenagers Ronit (an Israeli girl) and Jamil (a Palestinian boy) meet while accompanying their fathers (a Jewish pharmacist and Muslim doctor, respectively) to an East Jerusalem clinic. First-person poems in various forms convey characters' curiosity, confusion, and desires; the protagonists have strikingly similar voices, requiring close reading. Supplementary information offers context. (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A timeless tale of star-crossed love set amid modern-day conflict.Laskin's novel in verse takes forbidden teen love la Romeo and Juliet and sets it in present-day Israel. She portrays the Montagues and Capulets as Jews and Arabs, casting Ronit as the daring daughter of an Israeli pharmacist who falls for Jamil, the alluring son of a Palestinian doctor. What gives this contemporary reprise its ironic edge is that while the protagonists' fathers work together and routinely set aside political differences in the service of healing the sick, their ingrained cultural prejudices prevent them from accepting that their beloved children have fallen for each other. Laskin is at pains to show how similar the teens are: they've been raised on the same foods"hummus, falafel, baba ghanoush"and both wish to buck convention, Ronit to duck her mandatory army service, Jamil to avoid following in his father's footsteps to a career in medicine. Throughout, Laskin's spare first-person poems and prefatory and end notes help educate young readers as to the gravity of the political stakes in this war-torn region where, while Ronit texts that "there is no separation barrier" between them, they both lament that their physical reality proves quite the opposite: "This wall / is so high; / 25 feet of concrete / 435 miles long." At once romantic and revealing, an important window into contemporary conditions in the Middle East. (Verse fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.