A review by apollo0325
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Recommended by Anne Marie 😊

I had a really great time with this book. Not in the sense of a carnival great time but more like watching a war documentary that was well researched and constructed narratively.

This book had been teetering at a 3 for me until the twist which had me going :O “what the fuck” and it was set up very well to the point where these small details would be overlooked until the reader re-reads or recalls those moments. The structure of the story was well thought out and made for a really engaging story about a young woman struggling to balance her life, her family, and her love and loyalty for her country. Katouh does an amazing job of really placing the reader in Salama’s shoes. You hope for her survival and joy very early on.

Here are the few qualms I had with the book but they also contain spoilers. Here goes -

Khawf played on a very annoying type of character that I really don’t care for in almost any media which is your omniscient voice of reason/conscious. For most of the book, I felt he could have been fulfilled by an actual person. HOWEVER, the major plot twist would not have worked had we not had Khawf. Khawf showed us the hallucinatory state Salama was in, and it sort of forces us to not question anything as far as Leila goes. I can sort of forgive Khawf’s existence as a character because of this, but the idea that he just stops existing outside of Syria almost immediately was a little… lazy. It would have been more impactful had we seen Salama confront Khawf rather than speak to him as if they were old friends. Throughout the entirety of the book, he terrorizes her and while yeah that’s a good representation of fear itself, it feels lazy to have him just peace out once she’s on her way out. It didn’t feel closed off enough for me.

This one is a personal pet peeve of mine and not necessarily a ‘negative’ but I straight up cannot handle a character that constantly references shit unrelated to the moment as an anxiety coping mechanism. I know it is a valid coping mechanism to think/verbalize things to calm down, but in an audiobook, it is irritating. I think in book form, it may not have come across as annoying, but I listened to the audiobook so… yeah. Again, VERY personal nitpick. 

Not a qualm but still a spoiler: I’m so glad they made it out :(

Glad I read this book though! It’s probably one I’d be happy to recommend to others.