Scan barcode
A review by cpaul89
The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar
5.0
The writing is so vivid. By using the young narrator's synesthesia to describe the settings, the framework is like nothing I've ever read.
This story is beautiful and devastating and hopeful and enlightening. Exploration of grief and culture and an immigrant's experience -- especially that of the 12-year-old narrator, Nour, who has no memories of her country of origin. The Syrian language isn't even her first language.
This is then followed by a refugee experience. When Nour's home is destroyed by a bomb, she and her sisters and their mother rush to escape Syria.
Reading stories like this are important. And there are so many powerful passages as the story unfolds: "He opens his palm, feeling the heft of the mended knife as though being broken isn't something that destroys you."
It doesn't take much exposure to empathize or sympathize with a refugee when you engage with stories like this; when you see others as human.
This book is a must-read.
This story is beautiful and devastating and hopeful and enlightening. Exploration of grief and culture and an immigrant's experience -- especially that of the 12-year-old narrator, Nour, who has no memories of her country of origin. The Syrian language isn't even her first language.
This is then followed by a refugee experience. When Nour's home is destroyed by a bomb, she and her sisters and their mother rush to escape Syria.
Reading stories like this are important. And there are so many powerful passages as the story unfolds: "He opens his palm, feeling the heft of the mended knife as though being broken isn't something that destroys you."
It doesn't take much exposure to empathize or sympathize with a refugee when you engage with stories like this; when you see others as human.
This book is a must-read.