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dragonlilly's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
This is both a love story and a social commentary on arranged marriage and the power of rich religious leaders. The story also explores the lives of women and the little care that is taken at times to understand women, especially through a lens of misogyny and that discussion was quite interesting and thoughtful. The topic of the couple's adultery is also explored and somewhat described as both adultery and not adultery at the same time, because Salma is forced to marry due to the religious and social power others have over her, which to the couple effectively makes the marriage false because while a contract was made, it was not true in the heart of Salma or our main character. Overall, I greatly admired the discussions our main couple had, and how much truth and wisdom was ingrained in them. In general I admire Gibran's wisdom as a whole. The writing was beautiful, but at times it was a bit too flowery and complicated, and this definitely caused me to not connect with the characters emotionally until the very last section of the story where I became deeply moved for our characters. There were still tons of moments where I loved the flowery writing, even though reading it was challenging, and I could see a lot of inspiration from the Song of Solomon within the sections on love, which I thought was perfect for this poetic story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Infertility, Grief, and Death of parent
bookishfaye's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-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? It's complicated
5.0
Tbh this might just be the most beautiful story I ever have the privilege of reading in my entire life. The fact that this is likely an autobiographical account of Gibran hurts so much more & my heart aches rn
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Abandonment
williamgideon's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.5
The language was beautiful but I just couldn't resonate with it since Gibran has a very idealistic worldview. Plus the edition I had was full of typos.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, and Grief
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