The Book of Disappearance by Adania Shibli
Published 2025 · 60,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is The Book of Disappearance to read?
The Book of Disappearance scores 59 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 52 out of 100
- Arabic-English, Palestinian.
- Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
- Shibli's clear prose.
- Abstraction: 62 out of 100
- Disappearance, occupation.
- Information density: 55 out of 100
- Palestinian history.
- Narrative indirection: 60 out of 100
- Fantastical premise.
- Symbolic density: 65 out of 100
- Disappearance, presence.
- Ironic distance: 58 out of 100
- Political irony.
- Resolution withholding: 62 out of 100
- No resolution possible.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- Dual perspectives.
How The Book of Disappearance is regarded
The Book of Disappearance holds a literary regard score of 46 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.