Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Evil Eye

Whoa. This book was such a fantastic surprise. Incredible writing to reflect a Palestinian experience in America, but also so poignantly captures a woman’s battle in being a mother, daughter, wife, and her own person. One of the best books I’ve read this year.

Content Warnings

mrlsdevos's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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cody_crumley's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Who cares what the world sees if you can’t even stand to look at yourself?”

This might be one of the hardest reviews I have had to write for a bookclub book in a while. This book hit me emotionally in a place that I have not visited since my father died.

The way that Etaf Rum’s writing handles the descriptions of mental health and associated themes like micro and macro aggressions that the main character Yara has thrown at her. The way the author describes intergenerational family trauma. A lot of books that try to focus on mental health themes like they miss the finer details or only graze the surface. The fact that Rum is able to paint in the grey area with such delicate touches, like being able to show Yara’s mother as both a terrible victim of mental/physical abuse from her husband but also a perpetrator of mental abuse to Yara as a child.

Yara and Fadi’s marriage has a lot of similarities to my parents marriage. Two people who probably should not have gotten married, rushed into a relationship/marriage because of outside influences and circumstances. Every dialogue conversation between Fadi and Yara, like when Yara asked him to help with cleaning up transported me back to when I was a child and the same conversation would have between them.

The overall depiction of mental health was stellar. The interaction with Yara and the first counselor, which does a wonderful job of portraying the gender dynamics when the therapist is male and the patient is female. The journey Yara goes on through this book to stop blaming herself for what happened during her childhood while actually sitting with her emotions is extremely powerful and should be required reading for anyone that has similar problems.

I also think reading this book right now is more important than ever because what is happening to Palestine via the genocide perpetrated by Israel. This looks into the cultural trauma that a Palestinian-American can go through, not being able to go back to where they are from because of human atrocities delivered by an entire country is sickening.

While I don’t think that everyone who reads this will be impacted like I was, I still would recommend this book to everyone because of the subject matter and it’s current relevance to the current situation in Palestine.

Content Warnings

dragongirl271's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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judah_g's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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andrewhatesham's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This started out really good but I began to lose interest about 65% of the way through, as the plot kind of runs in circles and is also somewhat predictable. I prefer A Woman is No Man which I read earlier this year.

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baymax96's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

jennireadsmaybe's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

How do I write a review for Evil Eye? How do I capture how much this book means to me?

Evil Eye follows Yara, a Palestinian American woman, who after marrying and leaving her conservative family behind in Brooklyn is seemingly living the dream. She's gotten to do everything that her mother never could. She's working at a local college, married to a nice man, and raising her two daughters. Everything's great. Except it doesn't feel like enough.

Etaf Rum is a forced to be reckoned with; there's no other way to put it. Evil Eye explores generational trauma, motherhood, depression, friendship, and the deeply personal desire to be loved by the people around us. It's a hard read, but a necessary one in my opinion.

There were so many lines throughout the book that were a punch in the gut. Rum's writing is at once beautiful and harrowing, but I never find myself lost by it.

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