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nixazrael 's review for:
Salt Houses
by Hala Alyan
I read this book for a class, and I'd honestly forgotten how much I missed reading good fiction. This was a quality book, and it captured the sense of how in the midst of the Palestine conflict, while things are still being hashed out and going wrong and remaining unresolved, families are growing and living and dying, perpetually separated from their homes (sometimes even their second or third homes) by one conflict or another.
The prose was beautiful and evocative; the descriptions made me want to fall back into writing fiction again.
When I started this book, I noticed that one spread was dedicated to a family tree. I was apprehensive at first, because taking on too many characters can bog down a story. But even though there were multiple generations and multiple people in each generation who took turns telling the story, I managed to distinguish and care about all of them. Towards the end of the book, when one character had become old, it was unbelievable to me that they had some hours ago been introduced to me as a toddler, which I think speaks to how well Alyan drew me into the world she was creating on the page.
I'd say this was the best book I've read in a while. Granted, I haven't read that much lately, but that doesn't diminish the praise I'd award it.
The prose was beautiful and evocative; the descriptions made me want to fall back into writing fiction again.
When I started this book, I noticed that one spread was dedicated to a family tree. I was apprehensive at first, because taking on too many characters can bog down a story. But even though there were multiple generations and multiple people in each generation who took turns telling the story, I managed to distinguish and care about all of them. Towards the end of the book, when one character had become old, it was unbelievable to me that they had some hours ago been introduced to me as a toddler, which I think speaks to how well Alyan drew me into the world she was creating on the page.
I'd say this was the best book I've read in a while. Granted, I haven't read that much lately, but that doesn't diminish the praise I'd award it.