A review by misspalah
Savage Tongues by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I sat in bed and let out a long repressed cry. I cried quietly, silently. I held the blanket against my mouth. I was afraid of belting out my pain, afraid that woven into the fabric of my grief was the violence and cruelty of my relationship with Omar, what had happened between us, and all of the people— family, strangers, animals— who had cleared the path for us to meet. The last thing I wanted to do was unleash that cruelty back out into the world. I'd taught myself to regard my pain as my greatest asset, productive, instructive, generative; but only if I could figure out how to hold it kindly, gently. There was something transcendent in that pain. And for that reason, I'd wanted to avoid unleashing its unfiltered storms and dark shadows on another. I'd thought that if I held on to my suffering long enough I'd be able to metabolize it; it would dissolve and never again be recycled back into the currents of the world. But no. I'd been eclipsed by Omar. The injustices he'd assailed against me— against that wild boar and the birds he kept in cages, and who knows what other beings — could not be contained in a single temporal dimension. That's violence's greatest asset, I thought; the ability to make time itself servile to the deviousness of its will. We are left to manage the discrepancy between the scale of the event, its limited temporal duration, and its boundless posthumous influence over our hearts and minds.

• Savage Tongues by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi

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I know we are in March and its too early for me to say it but this is one of the visceral read i’ve had this year. The tremendous guilt (especially when our main character, Arezu described the SA and the R*pe that happened to her), the non-stop frowning (on why Arezu try to justify or equally blamed herself for putting herself in that situation and chasing the danger afterwards), the countless sighs (of trying to really understand the complexity of feelings that Arezu had towards the perpetrator) and occassionally ‘whyyyyyy?’ (because i try not to judge The MC stupid decision but sometimes its hard not to) while reading this book is just too real. The prose is gorgeously written - its heartfelt and evocative and it is a testament to why the author won the Pen/Faulkner Award. However, i have to warn that this is not for everybody. As the story did not get anywhere and it was not written in linear manner. What we’ve got is the regurgitation of emotions / feelings / sinful confessions / hidden & dark desires that has been kept inside of our main character, Arezu for so long after the incident. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for me - afterall, i love literary fiction but i can understand the frustration of others who rated this book lower than 3. The book also highlighted one of the most beautiful female friendship that happened between Arezu, Ellie and Sahar. While Sahar is already out pictures (not because she’s being abandoned - she’s literally difficult to be contacted as she lives in Palestine) but Arezu and Ellie continued to become best friends which is why Ellie agreed to accompany Arezu to Spain to confront and recount the whole memory of what has been described as painfully haunting during her journey to the adulthood. Another surprising aspect to this book is how the main characters is Pro-Palestine including Ellie, being an Israeli herself. She recognised the occupation, the injustice and oppression inflicted by Israel towards Palestine. Arezu, being an Iranian recognised the struggle of living under the governing of the oppressive regime. If you choose to read this, be prepared to feel uncomfortable as the elements of grooming, Stockholm syndrome and unresolved daddy issues is apparent that despite reading it in the perspective of victim herself, you will see that she kept on defending Omar’s action, her rapist & perpetrator and to why it happened in that manner and why he acted that way. Overall, this is truly heartbreaking read. I think the intention would be in showing that so many girls out there fell for the false security provided by the older guys they knew in their life only to be preyed on later. They mistaken the lust with affection and in turn, they thought they will be cherished forever. Once these girls grew into womanhood, they finally realised that they were the victims and what they thought was love was just a way to ravage their body and soul.