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samdalefox's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
sad
fast-paced
3.0
I commend what Sulaiman has acheived here. Freedom Hospital acts as a kind of introduction to what the Syrian revolution was/is (the civil war is ongoing), who the main players are and how the war affects Syrian people. However, it's a much more personal story, rather than focussing on specific historical events in great detail, these events provide the background for the characters where you see them live their every day lives and what choices they make to survive. It's humanising.
I found the resilience of Yasmine rebuilding the hospital again and again hopeful and inspiring, Much needed after continuously hearing her saying she believes the war will be short; where a decade later unfortunately we know it is still ongoing. Overall the novel does a good job at depicting the never ending violence, the brutal, complex, frustrating commandeering by other parties over the original conflict and a small glimmer of hope.
Pros
I found the resilience of Yasmine rebuilding the hospital again and again hopeful and inspiring, Much needed after continuously hearing her saying she believes the war will be short; where a decade later unfortunately we know it is still ongoing. Overall the novel does a good job at depicting the never ending violence, the brutal, complex, frustrating commandeering by other parties over the original conflict and a small glimmer of hope.
Pros
- The artwork worked well. Using only black and white and dramatic full page panels really highlights the stark violence in the story.
- I appreciated the character profiles given at the front of the novel and the explanatory footnotes throughout about what different names meant, I definitely benefitted from these.
- The range of characters introduced showcased how the war affects people from different walks of life. Women men, Sunni, Shiite, soldiers, academics, medics etc.
- The military equipment pictured is labelled with its model number and the country that sold it to either side. I think this an incredibly effective tool for indicating the countries complicit in funding the violence (US, UK, France, Russia).
Cons
- So much is covered, I don't feel we get enough time with each of the characters to get to know them well enough to feel deeply about them. For example
Salem and his fake memory loss actually being a Syrian Intelligence Agent and imprisoning Fawaz?! Then being shot by the colonel?! WHAT? It all happened too fast, it was hard to really empathise. - Because so much is covered I feel the story doesn't flow as well as expected, but that could be intentional with the time jumps and being split into 4 seasons. Time does flow differently when experiencing war.
- A big thing missing is the representation of women wearing hijab as active agents. The one hijabi, Zahabiah , did very little, and actually
stopped wearing her hijab by the end of the novel. Hopefully, through her own choice and not due to Western expectations/pressure/Islamophobia, but the story never actuallymakes this clear.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and War
Moderate: Child death and Medical trauma
Minor: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Torture, and Sexual content
There are graphic depictions of amputated body parts and of people being shot.pipn_t's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
This book was a difficult one to read. It was well written, and a lot of the small details were really effective, like the full page spreads of violence in black and white. Also the little notes mentioning the model of all the military equipment and it’s country of origin I found to be really upsetting after seeing them so many times. A good read, but it has some pretty heavy subject matter.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, War, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Animal death
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