Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Evil Eye

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

67 reviews

sarasreading's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful 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

4.5

This book gave me so many intense feelings.

I felt like I was in the arguments she had. When someone would say something awful and/or gaslight-y to her, I often had a retort in my head that she then said. I felt like I was by her side her every step of the way. While I don't know at all what it's like to be in her shoes racially or culturally, I've been in a surface level relationship with no emotional depth. You spend so much time begging for connection, not getting it, and then being told you should just stop being sad about the relationship, to get over it and be happy instead. I was fuming on her behalf.

There was so much gaslighting and past trauma, and it was so emotionally satisfying to see her begin to work through things, become a healthier person, recognize what she was constantly being put through, and then start making healing changes.

Rum does such an amazing job at making me feel intimately connected to her main characters. They feel so real and alive, and make me want to physically fight anyone treating them badly.

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warlocksarecool21's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

5.0

Evil Eye is a profound story about family, trauma and healing. We follow Yara, a Palestinian-American woman as she confronts her childhood and the idea that she may be cursed by it, the same thing that plagued her mother. With this heartbreaking metaphor for mental illness and generational trauma, this book explores how someone can be impacted by these things but not defined by them.

I thought the format of the story was really interesting too using the journal entries to show her cherished memories of her grandmother in Palestine alongside the scenes of her traumatic childhood. Every one of her journal entries helped me to understand her character a little more and how deeply the abuse her mother faced impacted both of them.

I listened to the audiobook version and it was moving and immersive, I felt like I was in Yara’s head. Even though I don’t share her particular situation, I related so much to her anxiety and the strained relationship she had with her mother. The writing is beautiful and resonant, and you really get to see Yara as she fully is, a person with flaws yes, but also someone with wishes and dreams no matter what anyone else wants from her.

I really enjoyed seeing her go through the healing process and begin to question how her past formed who she is and if she’s really content with the stagnant marriage she is in.

Watching her really accept that she needed help and actively try to heal was really impactful to me. It made me really happy when she started to realized that she deserved more than this marriage and that she wanted better than Fadi.

Throughout the book, my heart broke for her every time she ended up in a fight with Fadi. While on the surface he seems like the ideal husband supporting his family, the cultural and familial expectations really weigh on him and you can see how it affects him through how he treats Yara. While he wasn’t physically abusive, he was so frustrating because he never made an effort to understand her and dismissed her emotional needs. He was so stuck in his perception of what life is supposed to be like that any attempt by Yara to question it made him defensive and condescending, as if Yara didn’t understand the “real world.” In this way, we get to see how the patriarchy impacts everyone and no one is free while under this system.

This book definitely made me more aware of my own anxieties and feelings, and made me think about my own relationship with my mother. It also really made me think about how patriarchal systems affect everyone. Particularly how distant and misunderstood women may feel having to do all this emotional and physical labor as wives and mothers and being told their dreams are foolish and unattainable. Evil Eye is such a poignant book and everyone should read it.

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hdennis799's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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nonfictionfeminist's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

Another excellent story from Rum. This one felt slow and heavy, and it felt as though Rum was forcing me to slow down, take my time, savor it, study it. I found myself rereading sentences, not because I didn't understand them, but because I needed to pause, picture them, take them in and sit with them for a minute. This may just be my favorite book of 2023.

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