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A review by jerdylunes
Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek
5.0
This book will break your heart into smithereens.
That is literally all I wanted to say in this review because the book left me heartbroken and speechless. How can something so terribly, utterly sad, be written in such a beautiful way? You will probably shed many tears of utter sadness, but not be able to put the book down, even though you can probably imagine the outcome.
Hope IS a thing though, even through the darkest of moments, and we experience hope while reading, just as Rima, the main character, continues to hope and dream as she writes.
Rima is a young girl who lives in Damascus with her mother and brother. She decided at the age of 4 to not use her tongue, and is considered a mute by many people as she only speaks to recite or sing verses of the Qur’an. She also spends her time being attached by ties to her mother or to a pole, as she cannot control her feet: when she experiences freedom she cannot stop herself from walking, running away. When her mother is mistakenly shot at a checkpoint Rima’s life changes forever, and the narrative is her story of war, sadness, and death amidst bombs, chemical attacks, and loss.
Rima writes stories in circles, past and present woven together, each circle part of the next one. She sees everything in color, and paints the world she sees in her words, giving us a view of destruction that is very different but equally, if not more, as painful as a video or photograph. I have always loved how gorgeously Samar Yazbek writes, and Planet of Clay is no exception to this. It’s hard to explain just how much this novel will affect you - Rima’s narrative is both bleak and colorful, and she continues to write, to observe, and to leave her legacy, all the while suffering from the affects of a chemical bomb and losing everything she has ever known. I can’t recommend this book enough. Just be prepared to be devastated, but to also hopefully feel the push to do more to help in any way you can.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
That is literally all I wanted to say in this review because the book left me heartbroken and speechless. How can something so terribly, utterly sad, be written in such a beautiful way? You will probably shed many tears of utter sadness, but not be able to put the book down, even though you can probably imagine the outcome.
Hope IS a thing though, even through the darkest of moments, and we experience hope while reading, just as Rima, the main character, continues to hope and dream as she writes.
Rima is a young girl who lives in Damascus with her mother and brother. She decided at the age of 4 to not use her tongue, and is considered a mute by many people as she only speaks to recite or sing verses of the Qur’an. She also spends her time being attached by ties to her mother or to a pole, as she cannot control her feet: when she experiences freedom she cannot stop herself from walking, running away. When her mother is mistakenly shot at a checkpoint Rima’s life changes forever, and the narrative is her story of war, sadness, and death amidst bombs, chemical attacks, and loss.
Rima writes stories in circles, past and present woven together, each circle part of the next one. She sees everything in color, and paints the world she sees in her words, giving us a view of destruction that is very different but equally, if not more, as painful as a video or photograph. I have always loved how gorgeously Samar Yazbek writes, and Planet of Clay is no exception to this. It’s hard to explain just how much this novel will affect you - Rima’s narrative is both bleak and colorful, and she continues to write, to observe, and to leave her legacy, all the while suffering from the affects of a chemical bomb and losing everything she has ever known. I can’t recommend this book enough. Just be prepared to be devastated, but to also hopefully feel the push to do more to help in any way you can.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.