Scan barcode
robinks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
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? It's complicated
5.0
I loved getting to walk with the Yacoub family through so many years, getting to see how each of them grows internally and in relationship to the others. I believe the fact that Hala is a clinical psychologist allowed the characters to feel real. Also, there were many actual historical references that kept the story rooted in reality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Racism, Dementia, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Terminal illness, Torture, and Colonisation
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Police brutality, Rape, Murder, Religious bigotry, Confinement, Death of parent, War, Drug use, Fatphobia, Pregnancy, Death, Genocide, Islamophobia, and Abandonment
Minor: Racial slurs, Alcohol, Vomit, and Sexual harassment
kittykels's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
4.0
I personally felt this book fell flat in the middle. There was a lot of jumping around in time, and although the story is focused on one family, our attention is thrown around between them too often after too much time has passed so we aren't really able to form any kind of emotional connection. I enjoyed how the story was initially established and by the end of the book, I was able to have slightly more of an emotional connection with at least one or two of the characters, which helped my overall enjoyment of the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
Moderate: Pregnancy
warlocksarecool21's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book left me in such a state that I can’t write a review as cohesively as I normally do but I will share what thoughts I can cobble together:
Salt Houses beautifully raw story about a Palestinian family spread across the world after the Six Day War in 1967. We follow four generations of this family as they grapple with the enormous loss of being forced to leave Palestine and have to continue their lives elsewhere.
Hala Alyan’s writing is absolutely incredible, it’s lyrical and elegant and I underlined so many powerful quotes while reading. Through her captivating prose, Alyan is able to weave a story of four generations, centering on the relationships between mothers, and daughters and sisters.
We see how they are impacted by Israel’s violence against their family and land for decades after and how the loss of their homeland shaped their lives. This is a story of loss and grief, but we also see these characters in their most tangibly human moments. They grow up, they find love, have children, get old. There is sorrow but there is also joy and love.
Each member of the family carries the memory of Palestine with them in a different way, they are shaped by it but each of their lives takes a different path. I found myself attached to each character for different reasons, they were all so vivid and human I couldn’t help but be drawn in. Even if I disliked particular characters I was fascinated by them and resonated with their messiness and imperfections.
Salt Houses is such an incredibly impactful story about life, loss and family and I urge everyone to read it.
Salt Houses beautifully raw story about a Palestinian family spread across the world after the Six Day War in 1967. We follow four generations of this family as they grapple with the enormous loss of being forced to leave Palestine and have to continue their lives elsewhere.
Hala Alyan’s writing is absolutely incredible, it’s lyrical and elegant and I underlined so many powerful quotes while reading. Through her captivating prose, Alyan is able to weave a story of four generations, centering on the relationships between mothers, and daughters and sisters.
We see how they are impacted by Israel’s violence against their family and land for decades after and how the loss of their homeland shaped their lives. This is a story of loss and grief, but we also see these characters in their most tangibly human moments. They grow up, they find love, have children, get old. There is sorrow but there is also joy and love.
Each member of the family carries the memory of Palestine with them in a different way, they are shaped by it but each of their lives takes a different path. I found myself attached to each character for different reasons, they were all so vivid and human I couldn’t help but be drawn in. Even if I disliked particular characters I was fascinated by them and resonated with their messiness and imperfections.
Salt Houses is such an incredibly impactful story about life, loss and family and I urge everyone to read it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Grief, Terminal illness, and Pregnancy
Minor: War, Violence, Genocide, and Fatphobia
felishacb's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
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? No
4.0
Intergenerational stories that move through time featuring vignettes from different characters across three generations.
You see the pain and never-ending grief of displacement through the lives of this Palestinian family and their descendants, spread across the world from Paris to Boston to Lebanon to Jordan. But rarely home. Their refugee status is a shadow throughout, understood differently by each generation as time passes, but it never overpowers the dignity of their very human existence, their sometimes flawed choices and everyday tensions.
I was engaged throughout the story, but I have to admit the emotional revelations in the last chapters of the book stabbed at my heart. This book will stick with me.
Quotes:
She misses Mustafa. Like a city after a tsunami, the earth is altered without him. Wrecked.
**
'Motherhood doesn't suit me,' she once confessed to Budur, drunk. 'I don't have the stomach for not knowing what's next.'
**
"'Punch me,' he wants to yell at Mustafa. 'Tell me to fuck off. Hit me in the face. Pick up that goddamn suitcase. Walk down the driveway.
I would have followed you.
I would have followed you.
Take me with you. You can save yourself. We can both live.'"
You see the pain and never-ending grief of displacement through the lives of this Palestinian family and their descendants, spread across the world from Paris to Boston to Lebanon to Jordan. But rarely home. Their refugee status is a shadow throughout, understood differently by each generation as time passes, but it never overpowers the dignity of their very human existence, their sometimes flawed choices and everyday tensions.
I was engaged throughout the story, but I have to admit the emotional revelations in the last chapters of the book stabbed at my heart. This book will stick with me.
She misses Mustafa. Like a city after a tsunami, the earth is altered without him. Wrecked.
**
'Motherhood doesn't suit me,' she once confessed to Budur, drunk. 'I don't have the stomach for not knowing what's next.'
**
"'Punch me,' he wants to yell at Mustafa. 'Tell me to fuck off. Hit me in the face. Pick up that goddamn suitcase. Walk down the driveway.
I would have followed you.
I would have followed you.
Take me with you. You can save yourself. We can both live.'"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and War
Moderate: Torture, Murder, Pregnancy, Islamophobia, and Death
jackie_marion's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and War
Moderate: Islamophobia and Pregnancy
Minor: Toxic relationship
thenextbookdilemma's review against another edition
dark
emotional
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
Graphic: Violence, Xenophobia, and War
Minor: Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Genocide, Murder, Islamophobia, Sexual violence, Dementia, Religious bigotry, Torture, Body shaming, and Racial slurs
yourbookishbff's review
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
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
5.0
Salt Houses, by Hala Alyan, traces four generations of Palestinians through exile - from Palestine to Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Paris and Boston. Where multi-generational sagas always feel epic, this story is also painfully intimate. It’s a story filled with ghosts - of Palestine, of family members murdered or imprisoned or lost to time and distance and bitterness, of all the things we are too scared to say out loud to the people we love. The lives and love of Alia and Atef anchor the story, and we see their childhoods and young love, their deep trauma during the Six-Day War and subsequent flight to Kuwait, their early marriage with young children, the ceaseless displacement, the restless moves from country to country as they try to build lives free of war and occupation. Spinning out from them, we see their children and grandchildren with inherited trauma and grief fighting for reclamation and joy. This is a diaspora story where “houses as old as the earth itself” are replaced by “structures made of salt.”
And woven throughout each generation are moments of raw tenderness that boldly refute the dehumanization and violent caricaturization of Arab men we’ve witnessed through the last several decades. Instead: Mustafa, cradling a baby bird for his sister. Mustafa, practicing a speech for hours to get it just right. Mustafa, released from prison, kneeling to kiss his mother’s feet as he whispers never again. Atef making wishes to the moon with Riham. Atef drinking tea in the garden every afternoon with his daughter. Karam calming his mother’s fears and his sister’s anger. Zain reeling in Linah’s wild temper and restlessness. Alyan whispering to us: see this, and this, and this. Every life, an entire universe.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and War
Moderate: Mental illness, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Confinement
Minor: Abandonment, Vomit, Rape, and Abortion
mscalls's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Dementia, Blood, Gore, Police brutality, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Medical content, Pregnancy, Violence, and War
katievh's review against another edition
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
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, Drug use, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Islamophobia, Classism, Racial slurs, Death of parent, Alcoholism, and War
Minor: Fatphobia, Cursing, and Sexual content
bookedbymadeline's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
My second book from Alyan and loved it! Her writing style and characters are always beautifully done with lyrical prose. I enjoyed the switching POVs going through time from the 60s to 2014 as we follow one family. Alyan will definitely be an auto buy author for me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, War, Death, Grief, Mental illness, and Dementia
Moderate: Sexual content, Genocide, and Body shaming
Minor: Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Racism