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A review by cedence
As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book had me crying from page 58. The horrors it presents as a part of the everyday life of people in Homs, Syria is ghastly. The reality the characters go through is terrifying when your main choice is to die in Syria by the military of the oppressive regime or maybe survive the boats across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy - an uprooting from a country you love, the family you have burried, the people you could help. Yet, the main theme of this book is hope (lemons). Mixed with guilt and trauma and all the gray that comes alive when there are no "good" choices left to survive. It also has romance, some happiness, among the devestation.
This book changed my view. It really gave color to the individual stories and terrors that even drive people to flee their country in the first place instead of only people being statistics. The epilogue is equally as important as the story itself, imo. It really helped giving a strong picture on what surviving looks like, and the nudges towards the systems who split families across countries and so on.
READ THIS BOOK.
This book changed my view. It really gave color to the individual stories and terrors that even drive people to flee their country in the first place instead of only people being statistics. The epilogue is equally as important as the story itself, imo. It really helped giving a strong picture on what surviving looks like, and the nudges towards the systems who split families across countries and so on.
READ THIS BOOK.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual harassment, War, Child death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Vomit, Death, and Blood