A review by drlark
Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek

emotional reflective sad

3.25

A difficult read, both for the subject matter and the narrative style. Planet of Clay follows Rima, a young woman living in Damascus with her mother and brother as the civil war is breaking out in the 2010s. Rima doesn't see the world the way her family or community does. As she says, her brain is in her feet, and she's compelled to walk and to see the world in circular stories. She chooses not to speak but sings the Qur'an and teaches children how to do art. As the war intensifies and tragedies mount, the gradually unspooling story Rima tells gives the reader a lovely, poetic point of view from which to see all the ugliness.  The incongruity between how she sees the world and how the rest of the world treats her is heartbreaking. Glad I read it; glad it's over.