Heartache and Hope

This was beautifully narrated, bringing the characters to life and giving them a voice of their own. The story is a heartbreaking one. You really can't get away from that. But through it all there is always hope and humanity. At first I didn't understand the side story, the story of Rawiyah and the trials and tribulations that she endures. Ultimately this is a story of love and family and the sacrifices families make to stay together through war torn ravages and separation. Highly recommended.

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Extraordinary, broad-reaching and beautiful book

This book is a rich and moving tapestry of Syrian life ancient and modern. With a clever juxtaposition of the voices of a present-day and medieval heroine, through its alternating chapters it celebrates culture, history, identity and mourns the tragedy of contemporary Syria. One of our heroines is an adventurer at the dawn of the civilised world. The other, sadly, is a survivor at what is arguably the end of it. Both are wonderful, inspiring characters. While reading this book, you will need to put it down now and then, because your eyes will blur. You weep not just at the horror of war, for the loss of happiness - evocative passages that present a peaceful Syrian family life. The author depicts the everyday in vivid, glorious prose that bring her story to life - smells and sounds and sights of it all. I would particularly recommend this book for young women, it would make an excellent gift for a niece or daughter. But read it yourself first. Weep. Enjoy. Bravo Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. With praising the text, mention also has to be made of the fine, varied and lively reading performance by Lara Sawalha. The breadth of her voice delivery is always impressive, with accents and intonation all a joy to listen to.

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1 person found this helpful

Deeply emotional

Very moving and well-told story. A few tears were shed listening to this. The narrator has a lovely voice.

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Lovely descriptive writing.

The parallel stories of two intrepid girls from different eras works very well. and is a novel approach to the plight of refugees.

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Two beautiful stories in one

I really loved this, I couldn’t stop listening to it. The storyteller did a brilliant job, changing her voice with the characters. The story itself was beautiful, realistic, painful and magical all at the same time. A small handful of scenes with a kiss , otherwise I would have let my son listen too. Loved this book and will probably listen to it again some day!

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Boring confusing hard to follow no story line

One of the worst books I’ve listened to. Can’t carry on, confusing story line, not engaging, hard to follow. Don’t buy!

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Gibberish. Absolutely awful.

This book was not for me.

I didn’t really “get” it? Persisting til the end did not pay off and at no point was I engaged. I have no idea what the author was trying to achieve. I just did not get it. I found the narration style unbearably irritating which didn’t help (sorry Lara Sawalha). The whole thing read like a 12 year old’s bedtime story.

Too often I felt like the author was writing in gibberish. She obviously has an obsession with colours and loves to be overdescriptive, like she was trying too hard to be creative, thrashing the use of similes which was rather cringeworthy (and which didn’t actually add anything to the book).

Was not a fan of the dual storylines, not just because it almost doubled the length of the book (and I couldn’t wait to get to the end), but because listening to the audiobook made it difficult to work out when the author was switching between the two.

I was hoping to learn about Middle Eastern culture and the Syrian crisis but instead was subjected to 2x sugar-coated fictional versions of a teenaged Syrian girl’s “adventure”. Too many plot points left me with unanswered questions while too many others were overexplained.

I was too distracted by the nonsense writing style to engage or sympathise with any of the characters. I was rarely intrigued by the plot and was so uninterested in what came next that I would have put it down after 2 pages, had I not needed to finish it for my book club.

£9 and 12 hours of my life I’ll never get back.

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