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A review by balletbookworm
Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
fast-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? Yes
4.5
4.5 stars.
Another one I picked up off Jesse's Blackathon TBR rec video.
And it is a beautifully rendered novel-in-verse about a Sudanese-American girl who is kind of obsessed about the "her" who might have existed if her mother had named her Yasmeen (for the jasmine flower) instead of Nima (meaning "grace", and Nima doesn't think of herself as graceful). She eventually meets this Yasmeen in a surreal otherworld where she travels to a time when her parents were just married and the future was uncertain. Now, you do have to go with that little magical realism insertion, because I wasn't quite sure if I liked it at first, but the language is so lovely that it pulled me through. It doesn't quite hit 5 stars for me, because I'm not sure it nailed the ending all the way (insert: this is why I have trouble with time travel/timeloops/side-slips etc because they never seem to resolve satisfactorily for me), but that's pretty minor.
The language and structure of the poetry reminded me a lot of Chlorine Sky.
Another one I picked up off Jesse's Blackathon TBR rec video.
And it is a beautifully rendered novel-in-verse about a Sudanese-American girl who is kind of obsessed about the "her" who might have existed if her mother had named her Yasmeen (for the jasmine flower) instead of Nima (meaning "grace", and Nima doesn't think of herself as graceful). She eventually meets this Yasmeen in a surreal otherworld where she travels to a time when her parents were just married and the future was uncertain. Now, you do have to go with that little magical realism insertion, because I wasn't quite sure if I liked it at first, but the language is so lovely that it pulled me through. It doesn't quite hit 5 stars for me, because I'm not sure it nailed the ending all the way (insert: this is why I have trouble with time travel/timeloops/side-slips etc because they never seem to resolve satisfactorily for me), but that's pretty minor.
The language and structure of the poetry reminded me a lot of Chlorine Sky.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Islamophobia
Part of this book is set in Sudan as the civil war is starting to ramp up, so while many horrors of war are not on page, it is alluded to around the edges.