Intimacies

I enjoyed immersing myself in this story a lot. It is introspective and interior, quiet but full of feeling. The writing is sharp, the descriptions spare but enough. I did not know anything about the Hague going in, nor about the International Criminal Court, but it was really interesting being in the unnamed narrator's head as she went about her interpreting work in the Court; and of course, her friendships with the few people she knew in a place that never quite felt like home, including the sister of a man who had been robbed and beaten outside another friend's apartment. The narrator's reactions to things were so visceral and snap-judgmental, and in that I related a lot to her. (I've been pretty judgy myself lately, call it a reaction to the world “opening back up” and realizing that Covid has really screwed up how I feel about myself, and about supposedly “normal” social situations. I'm working on it; the first step towards fixing a problem is admitting you've got one, eh?) I didn't think I would, but I liked where it ended.