Reviews

Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sara M Saleh

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katarinabee's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-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? It's complicated

4.25

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keeley_allen's review

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challenging reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Heartbreaking and powerful, making painfully real the experiences of war and displacement. The complexities of the experience of arriving in “safety” is brought by Saleh into stark relief, with all that that entails leaving behind, as well as the new series of challenges and difficulties with which that might bring the arrivant into contact, and what roles that can play in new cycles of harm — harms embodied in interpersonal relationships and in the inscription into established structures of harm (in particular those of a settler-colonial nation state). Deeply necessary reading.

ruth_rb's review

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challenging dark emotional informative 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? No

4.75

ornamentalhermit's review

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emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

bookswithcuppatea's review

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adventurous challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

This is a wonderfully written story of a Palestinian family in their precarious existence in Lebanon and Egypt, and how one member of the family reaches Australia. The story of how the family left Palestine is told by the grandmother to her granddaughters

near the end of her life in Lebanon

, a story she had never told anyone before.

I appreciated the insight into family dynamics in a cultural context so different from my own, and yet having grown up with sisters also relatable. Jamilah in particular was a character I felt I could empathise with, and I really hoped for her the whole way through, while I worried about how her life might turn out.

For a novel set during times of upheaval and uncertainty there are also moments of hope and beauty and joy. But there are also scenes of pain and grief. It's a novel I'd be very happy to read again, and I hope Sara M Saleh will write more novels after this!

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