The expressed theme song to this novel is Nirvana's "All Apologies," but I can't be the only one who keeps hearing Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited." I probably don't have it word for word but here's your earworm for the day: 
 *wacky sirens* 
 God said to Abraham, kill me a son / Abe said, Man you must be putting me on / God said no, Abe said what / God said, you can do what you want Abe but / The next time you see me coming you better run / Abe said, where you want this killin done... 
 Our main character, Jacob, is the weak link in the family chain. The first 100 pages or so are tough... you think you're trudging through a story you've read before -- man loses interest in wife because she's had three children and he's finding the sexy elsewhere and wife finds out by finding the burner phone and reading the dirty texts sent to another woman while he's been refusing sex to her for years... 
 When you find out hundreds of pages later why he really "lost interest" in his wife, what he destroyed his marriage for... that's a true OMG moment about male vanity. And that's just one small thread of story played out against the backdrop of a terrible natural disaster in the Middle East which is quickly exploited for political gain by various nations & alliances, leading to a war which gives our hero further opportunity to display his (not very admirable) character. 
 There are scenes that are direct parodies? challenges? to other "big" novels. Frankly, I could have been spared Sam's extended masturbation scene. I would have been willing to stipulate that a Jewish novelist has read Portnoy's Complaint. But I have to admit a lot of this inside baseball stuff is fun... It almost makes having suffered through Portnoy's Complaint worth it to get the joke. Well, I did say "almost." 
 I would have liked to have seen more of Tamir, but I get it... the story is about the American side of the family (that wants peace and would prefer not to jump in the lion's den) as opposed to the Israeli side of the family. That evidently has no issue with jumping into the lion's den and inviting you to come along for the ride... 
 This is not the book for when you're sitting beside the pool sipping a frosty drink at the resort. But when you're in the mood for something meaty, it really makes you stop and think.