'Green Almonds' by Anaele Hermans with art by Delphine Hermans is a graphic novel about a correspondence between two sisters.

Two sisters, Anaele and Delphine, in Belgium start writing each other when Anaele leaves for Palestine. Anaele is going to volunteer in an aid program and learns firsthand the delicate situation between Israelis and Palestinians. Through holidays and travel Anaele writes her sister about how she is feeling. Delphine, in turn, writes short postcards and her anxiety for her sister is pretty evident.

I liked this story about an outsider who sees firsthand a situation that is going on. The art is interesting as is the story.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Oni Press, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Anaële Hermans tells us her story of when she left for Palestine and how her life there was surrounded by the politics going on in the territory. I liked the graphic novel fine, it had a simplicity that made me like the art. About the story, I really would rather not have an opinion on it since I am not from that region and for now lack of understanding of what is occurring. However, it was nice to see this one side of the story in a graphic novel.

Letters full of information and context of one of the most terrible and lasting conflicts in the history of mankind, and the most fascinating thing is that it is a girl who tells us about it. A beautiful idea very well executed.

Necessary graphic novel.

A beautiful graphic memoir that is informative and necessary for all people to be aware of. I highly recommend this title.

"This book is a personal look into a complex reality, through the lens of an intimate exchange."

This disclaimer of sorts is what starts off this graphic novel, and I feel it was a great way to settle down my expectations of learning a lot about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The graphic novel follows a young Belgian woman who volunteers in Palestine for a few months. She lives and visits different places in Palestine and in Israel. She hears of and witnesses many injustices herself, but in spite of how much she becomes emotionally affected by these experiences, she is ultimately, a foreigner, and this is just an experience in her life, rather than her experiencing this in her day-to-day life.

I enjoyed this graphic novel for what it was, and being someone who enjoyed traveling and volunteering in my early twenties, I felt I could relate to Anaële's feelings of hopelessness in the face of the world. If you're looking for a history lesson on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict however, this may unfortunately not be for you.

I enjoyed the epistolary aspect of the tale. I enjoyed learning about the Palestinian culture through Anaël's eyes.

I think this may be the first epistolary graphic novel I've ever run across. It was a really neat way to tell the story - letters between two sisters, one in Belgium and one volunteering in Palestine. The book shows the lives of ordinary people in Gaza and it's absolutely heartbreaking. The dichotomy between the lives of Anaële's Palestinian friends vs her Israeli friends is stark.

Delphine's illustrations are simple but effective in managing to convey both her sister's outsider status, and the harsh reality of the wall and security checkpoints.

A really effective and evocative graphic novel.

Thank you, NetGalley for the preview of this graphic novel.

I have always been drawn to books about Palestine and have always been moved by those books. This book was no exception from it. Will highly recommend.

I like to mix a few graphic novels into the mix when I read, mostly because the are shorter and different. I chose to request access to this book via NetGalley because it had an interesting concept. 

The story is a memoir of two sisters, told through the letters they sent each other while one was doing volunteer work in Palestine and the other stayed behind in Belgium. It is the story of a conflict I did not have much background on and the narrative got me thinking about it. When you see conflict through the eyes of the people who have suffered, after the fact, there is a tone of relief. Here, you see the relief when a 'normal' day occurs in such a chaotic environment. The description is given to us by someone who is not directly invested in the war, but by choosing to live there for an extended period, gets emotionally tangled in it.

It was a good idea, to put the story as postcards and bits of information provided in them. The problem was with the panels themselves( for me, at least). Try as I might, I could not get myself to like the depiction of the people, they seemed a little disproportionate and funnily shaped.This threw me off a book that could have made a bigger impact for me.

The beauty of graphic memoirs is their sincerity. While reading them, you feel more than just the words. While Green Almonds is technically a graphic novel and memoir, it is the telling of a broken political city from the view of an outsider. So unlike the memoirs where you feel a part of the story, this graphic novel makes everyone an outsider. This takes away from not only the experience reading, but the message they are trying to tell and education they are trying to share.

First, lets get the uglies out of the way - 3.5 stars is a good review. In fact, it's an above average review. I really liked Green Almonds, but know that I failed to connect with it on a personal/ aesthetic level. Now, this is the part where I expose my bias... you see, I cut my teeth on comics journalism/ conflict travelogues reading Joe Sacco (think Palestine, Footnotes in Gaza, and Safe Area Gorazde) and I find it difficult to read anything along these lines without drawing direct comparisons to the genre's founder.  

While Green Almonds has all of the deeply disturbing and emotional elements that I have come to appreciate and expect from works looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where this book feel just a little short for my tastes was in the art. The abstractions, while easily identifiable and unquestionably human, were just a little too cartoonish (if not a little childish) in relation to the subject matter at hand. I appreciated that the result was an emphasis that focused squarely on the personal narrative portrayed, ultimately I found the graphic element to be lacking in depth and emotion. The landscapes were simple with minimal detail and I was left wanting shading, texture, and a little realism. I know that this is entirely personal, but I had trouble with the overwhelming amount of white space!

But, and this is the important part, the panels and pages were meticulously blocked, the script expertly distributed, and the story fully supported and portrayed by the images at hand. There was an easily identifiable sense of time and place, with carefully controlled pacing that lent a realistic quality to the reading experience. There was ample variety in the panel sizes and arrangements which kept every pages feeling fresh and never boring, and the use of multiple transition types kept me on my toes. Additionally, enough action takes place in the gutter to allow the imagination enough agency to fill in the blanks based on assumptions or personal experience, with just enough imagery to keep everything on track.

Additionally, I really loved the alternation between the sisters with the comics/ postcard dichotomy. It really facilitated a difference in voice and character, even though Delphine is rarely portrayed, and highlights the ways in which siblings can be connected yet entirely opposite. I loved how Delphine was meticulous, succinct, and almost professional while Anaele embodied the type of free spirit that engages in voluntourism. I was most drawn to Anaele's interactions with locals on either side of the conflict, and genuine appreciated how both Israelis and Palestinians were portrayed without bias or judgement. Every character had a story, a unique experience, and a lived reality that translated beautifully to the page.

It has always been difficult for me to conceptualize the spectrum of lifestyles lived within such a small geographical area, and yet Green Almonds portray's beautifully how a wall and some checkpoints can separate opulence from poverty and oppressor from oppressed. As the pages progress it becomes increasingly clear how living in such conditions can wear a person down. The number of personal narratives relayed creates a critical mass highlighting a humanitarian crises, and really calls to question how we are able to sit by and turn away from this reality.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely. Although perhaps not to those who are new to the comics medium. Yet, the memoir and autobiographic elements are evocative, touching, and truly thought provoking. Green Almonds is most definitely a worthwhile and introspective read.

This graphic book about life in Palestine will be a useful addition to our shelf of refugee books. The story is a simple one of the views of a western girl who has worked for a year in Palestine as a volunteer.. It shows how alien everything was for her to begin with and all the differences there were between her western upbringing and the Arab upbringing. It shows how there are differences between the Israelis and the Arabs, it does not judge, it leaves the reader to make their own decisions about the situations.

The drawings are simple black and white outlines and this gives emphasis to the situations Anaele finds herself in and the welcome she receives from the alien culture.

The contrast between the letters written from Palestine and the cheerful postcards from Belguim is also interesting. I can also relate to Anaele being exhausted at the end of her year, she does admit to confusion about the situations she finds herself in. I think this would be true of any western volunteer in a third world or war torn country. So this is a book I will be buying for our library.

I'm always looking for books that are engaging or educating or hopefully both for YA students. Call this one "both."

I was not view the review copy. The file opened however the content was too distorted to see. Might be a problem at my end, however I am not able to comment on the book. Too bad.

Interesting story about a woman going to Palestine and Jerusalem and telling her sister what is going on and her experiences through post cards. The story irritated me because not enough information about the conflict was given to give the story context and comes off as look what this European tourist went through and witnessed. I liked the simplicity in the art work. The whole post card thing felt unnecessary because the sisters didn’t really acknowledge what the other was saying in her letters.

This was an interesting read. It was meaningful and really strong subject. I think it was my first non fiction graphic novel and i liked it a lot.

Green Almonds is a memoir told in letters and post cards between two sisters while one of them spends six months working for a volunteer program in Palestine. Anaele gives a unique perspective on every day norms for the Palestinians that would seem absurd to any visiting person who grew up in the West. This includes bulldozers knocking down housing without any plans to rebuild new housing, as well as Israeli soldiers shooting at kids chasing after their soccer balls that rolled into the road. The general census from her Palestinian friends is that it's normal because it's what they grew up with, even though it's far from what we would consider a normal neighborhood.

While I appreciated the thought of telling the story through letters from both sisters, I felt that Delphine's postcards were rather lacking in concern for Anaele. Delphine would talk about some mundane thing that she did or saw while Anaele was writing her pages about the inequality that she witnessed and fear that she felt. They could have been easily left out and kept a focus on the story Anaele was trying to tell while in Palestine.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Green Almonds is the true story of Anaele, a Belgium woman, volunteering in Palenstine for a year, and the exchange between her and her sister, Delphine.

I like how the story is told through postcards and letters between the two sisters. In the United States, there seems to be a lack of knowledge of what Palestinians are going through. I would highly recommend this graphic novel to people for an introduction to the plight of Palestinians. The postcards from Delphine highlight the vast difference in the daily lives of Palestinians and Belgians.

Green Almonds is a personal memoir of Palestine and Israel through postcards and correspondence by two sisters. Anaele, a writer, spends half a year volunteering with an aid program in Palestine. Her sister Delphine, the artist, stays behind in Liege, Belgium. As Anaele writes about her experiences in Palestine, Delphine draws out her sister's story.

In the simple drawings and text, Anaele and Delphine share an on the ground story of the complexity and pain of a community severed because of religion, politics, and ethnicity. Anaele makes friends, but as an outsider, is not able to make any kind of real change. It seems like Anaele's relationships with others seem one sided. I am not sure what kind of help she offers, except to be a sympathetic ear for these people. Perhaps this comic is also her way of being witness for the people she works with and telling her story beyond the walls of Palestine.

For me, this is both a frustrating and realistic look at living as a marginalized citizen in your own land.

Digital copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.

Green Almonds is a graphic memoir in the form of exchanges of letters, well letters from Anaele Herman’s and postcards from her sister Delphine, describing Anaele’s six month visit to the Palestinian Territories, where she volunteered with children. I wish I could be more specific about what she did while she was there but since she failed to be more specific I rather at a loss to tell you what he did. It seems like her days were filled with visits to her newly made Palestinian and Israeli friends.

One of my problems with this book is we get a terribly one-sided view of a very nuanced conflict. Despite Anaele having, according to her, Israeli friends whom she visits on occasion, we hear nothing of their views, hopes and dreams or reactions to the conflict. We hear much about the Palestinians reactions to the Separation Wall, without any acknowledgement of the reason for its existence, which is not unexpected. Much is made of the increasing heavy handed Israeli presence in the West Bank and it is made to appears oppressive. There are references to increasing numbers of Palestinians winding up in Israeli jails and the reader is left with the impression that this is another example of Israeli heavy-handedness; however, it should be noted that this took place in 2008’ following the Second Intifada when there had been a noticeable uptick in suicicde bombing and other terrorist attacks inside Israel, so the Army;was extra vigilant.. This reality was not reflected in the book .

In general, I found the book to be disappointingly one-sided, especially by someone who supposedly had friends on both sides and professed sympathies for both sides. I think the author was a bit naive before she arrived and too easily swayed once she stayed within the Palestinian Terrotories. There is no denying the conditions she experienced but the realities of situation which caused those conditions was not explored at all and an opportunity to perhaps bring some light to a complicated and nuanced situation was lost.

I was provided a copy of this book by netgalley in return for an honest review.