Reviews - Salt Houses | The StoryGraph

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1.82k reviews for:

Salt Houses

Hala Alyan

4.2 AVERAGE

librarygal123's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

freyavanevery's review against another edition

5.0

emotional reflective sad 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

findingfiction_'s review against another edition

4.0

An amazing generational fiction that shows the beautiful, raw, perfect and imperfect moments of human existence.

This one is a must read for all those who want a little fragment into the Palestinian existence without the deep descriptive horrors and heartbreak that is reality for many.

This one for me hit close to home with the experience of a first generation living in a western world. The loss of culture and language resonated with me.

south__carolina's review against another edition

4.0

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

taytayk's review against another edition

4.0

Hala Alyan writes very much in the vein of "One Hundred Years of Solitude". The plot which cascades down through the family tree and a magical connection to place are all there in their own ways. Salt Houses, however, sets itself apart with it's realness. It's contemporary. These characters are characters which exist as living, suffering people, and they exist a thousand times over. This was the most profound part for me, reading of the diaspora in one hand and watching indigenous Palestinians being brutalized through my phone in the other.

The youthful fight for justice, the fear of what will come, and the endless, messy love a family holds are all explored with displacement as a constant. Which is apt. It's heartbreaking and never really lets up. All the sorrows of a good life are suffered through, except nobody ever feels as if they've come home. I thought it was beautiful at many parts, and did cry here and there -- sometimes for the sake of the characters and sometimes for their counterparts living as I read. Very good :).