Reviews

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

Only show reviews with written explanations

georgia_sara93's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-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

4.0

Yara’s been cursed by the Evil Eye. She’s married to a man who provides for his family, she has two beautiful daughters, she’s freer than most American Palestinian women she knows being able to have gone to college and later work. But she still feels restricted in life.

This was a beautiful and moving story about trauma and the effects of intergenerational trauma. The writing it beautiful, the reflections on discovering yourself when you’ve always felt trapped are beautifully done. This book flooded my feed when it first came out, but little since, and I’d love to see it popping up more again as it deserves the praise it’s received.

meera01's review against another edition

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challenging sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

This felt like it was written by a different author from A Woman is No Man. It was rather incomplete with the two-dimensional characterizations of most people and their motives in this novel. The internal dialogue of the MC was very repetitive too. I was set to love this like I had the first novel but the the themes played a stronger part than anything else and because of that I didn’t much enjoy this. It was as if the author wanted to bring attention to generational trauma and mental illness but didn’t want to take the time to write a good novel as well.

kimb2's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I didn’t enjoy this one as much as A Woman is no Man. I found this to be a long, drawn out, character study of a woman reflecting on her childhood trauma. For me, the execution falls short.

The story certainly tackles important issues such as the struggles of being a Palestinian woman, but I feel it is bogged down in the weight of the subject matter. The tension between Yara’s traditional upbringing and her desire for independence is a central theme, but at times, it seems as though the same issues are repeated without providing much growth and it left me wanting more. Then the story ended, just when a whole new storyline was appearing.

So, for me, this was just okay.

Content Warnings