The map of salt and stars

by

360 pages

English language

Published Nov. 10, 2018

ISBN:
978-1-5011-6903-8
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OCLC Number:
1001251122

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4 stars (3 reviews)

"In the summer of 2011, just after Nour loses her father to cancer, her mother moves Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. In order to keep her father's spirit as she adjusts to her new home, Nour tells herself their favorite story--the tale of Rawiya, a twelfth-century girl who disguised herself as a boy in order to apprentice herself to a famous mapmaker. But the Syria Nour's parents knew is changing, and it isn't long before the war reaches their quiet Homs neighborhood. When a stray shell destroys Nour's house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence or flee across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety--along the very route Rawiya and her mapmaker took eight hundred years before in their quest …

1 edition

reviewed The map of salt and stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

Holy <expletive>

5 stars

I couldn’t even tell you how I ended up with this book. It languished in the TBR for a while. And then, when I finally picked it up, it’s kind of a slow start. And I didn’t understand why there was this whole secondary story going on.

And then. And then the story picked up, and I got to see not just a family on the run, but how that family changed shape while they were running. All of the things they had to run through. All the risks they took for the mere hope of something resembling safety. And how that secondary story relates. Just… holy at the whole thing.

It was also cool seeing some synesthesia rep!

reviewed The map of salt and stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

beautiful writing (sometimes too beautiful)

4 stars

In the modern storyline, sometimes the dialogue seemed to go from one heartfelt, poetic and insightful conversation to another - which sometimes worked really well, but other times seemed a bit improbable for the young protagonist. I really liked switching between the two storylines, and as I'm not very familiar with the places where it takes place, I was also switching between the book and Wikipedia throughout :)

avatar for bjerre

rated it

3 stars

Subjects

  • Refugees
  • Refugee children
  • Fiction

Places

  • Syria

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