A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

One of the novel’s two protagonists, Tal, is hopeful, heartfelt, and determined. Her perspective and experiences as an Israeli teen the night of a bombing at a cafe near her home set the novel’s plot in motion. Tal acknowledges that she is not typically a diarist: “I get average grades for literature, nothing more, and I have no dreams of being a writer. What I really want is to make films, to be a director” (4). However, Tal is unable to stop writing since the bomb attack. Her need to record details and connect with others is what motivates her to write the letter and put it in a bottle.

Tal’s narrative demands empathy, and the “averageness” of her life suggests she is an ordinary high school girl—someone who likes some of her teachers and dislikes others, has a best friend and a boyfriend, a brother both annoying and adored—who happens to be living under the extraordinary threat that any day could end in disruption, violence, and death. It is how she chooses to manage these paradoxes that makes her a dynamic character, and the curiosity of her emails to Naïm convey her innate desire to see others as they really are rather than as others have portrayed them.