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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
Oh my gosh this book is absolutely beautiful!! Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar’s writing is lyrical, music, a canvas that she paints in such vivid colors as you read.
The Map of Salt and Stars is the story of two stories in parallel, 800 years apart. Nour, a 12 year old Syrian-American, goes back to Syria with her mother and two sisters after her father dies in 2012, and then nearly dies herself when a bomb smashes her family’s home in Homs to rubble. Rawiya leaves her home disguised as a boy, and becomes Rami, to join Al-Idrisi a famous mapmaker and learn from him. Both girls start on a life-changing and harrowing journey through the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Nour has a form of synesthesia where everything becomes a color. Voices are colors, feelings are color, objects are described in color. It leads to some vivid, amazing descriptions. So many metaphors nestled within the narrative, I found myself often stopping for a minute to close my eyes and imagine the scene in my head. After a while you start thinking in color too, and it’s a truly amazing experience. Rawiya draws on legends of the past and Middle Eastern poetry to recreate a narrative that hovers between the mythical and the realistic, perfectly complementing Nour’s own experiences.
The descriptions of Syria, as well as the other areas that the girls travel through, are so beautiful, powerful, devastating. I love how both narratives follow the same journey, drawing the maps of the area as they go, watching, waiting, and seeking. I have personally spent quite a bit of time in areas close to where their feet travel and the descriptions in the book took me right back there, so much so that I could feel the sun on my head and feel the heat of the day through the soles of my feet. I loved reading the words “Wadi Araba” because I know exactly where that is without looking at a map, and can just imagine it now and 800 years ago. The map drawing narrative is incredible, just reading about how the lines were drawn, the travels that it took over land and sea to create maps that told us how vast our world was.
So many parts of this book had me in tears, and not just the obvious parts. Being an immigrant myself with an immigrant partner from a different country than I am from, there are so many areas in the story where I found my heart breaking because I too feel that, and we too have been there. Borders seem to be so much more important to some people than they are to others. I’m not a refugee, and therefore have not suffered from a forced departure like Nour, but the soul searching, home searching, and feelings of displacement I can relate to.
I think that Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar does an amazing job depicting the importance of understanding how one becomes a refugee, and of opening our eyes to why someone would leave their home country with only the clothes they are wearing, through such a beautiful and heartbreaking story. I seriously cannot recommend this book enough.
I see fireworks: red, blue, purple, green, with a shower of golden stars. The Map of Salt and Stars is amazing. Please read this book.
The Map of Salt and Stars will be published on May 1st by Touchstone. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy. I will be buying this beautiful book in hardcover because I want to hold it in my hands and read it again and again. There are so many areas that I wanted to highlight and quote.
The Map of Salt and Stars is the story of two stories in parallel, 800 years apart. Nour, a 12 year old Syrian-American, goes back to Syria with her mother and two sisters after her father dies in 2012, and then nearly dies herself when a bomb smashes her family’s home in Homs to rubble. Rawiya leaves her home disguised as a boy, and becomes Rami, to join Al-Idrisi a famous mapmaker and learn from him. Both girls start on a life-changing and harrowing journey through the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Nour has a form of synesthesia where everything becomes a color. Voices are colors, feelings are color, objects are described in color. It leads to some vivid, amazing descriptions. So many metaphors nestled within the narrative, I found myself often stopping for a minute to close my eyes and imagine the scene in my head. After a while you start thinking in color too, and it’s a truly amazing experience. Rawiya draws on legends of the past and Middle Eastern poetry to recreate a narrative that hovers between the mythical and the realistic, perfectly complementing Nour’s own experiences.
The descriptions of Syria, as well as the other areas that the girls travel through, are so beautiful, powerful, devastating. I love how both narratives follow the same journey, drawing the maps of the area as they go, watching, waiting, and seeking. I have personally spent quite a bit of time in areas close to where their feet travel and the descriptions in the book took me right back there, so much so that I could feel the sun on my head and feel the heat of the day through the soles of my feet. I loved reading the words “Wadi Araba” because I know exactly where that is without looking at a map, and can just imagine it now and 800 years ago. The map drawing narrative is incredible, just reading about how the lines were drawn, the travels that it took over land and sea to create maps that told us how vast our world was.
So many parts of this book had me in tears, and not just the obvious parts. Being an immigrant myself with an immigrant partner from a different country than I am from, there are so many areas in the story where I found my heart breaking because I too feel that, and we too have been there. Borders seem to be so much more important to some people than they are to others. I’m not a refugee, and therefore have not suffered from a forced departure like Nour, but the soul searching, home searching, and feelings of displacement I can relate to.
I think that Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar does an amazing job depicting the importance of understanding how one becomes a refugee, and of opening our eyes to why someone would leave their home country with only the clothes they are wearing, through such a beautiful and heartbreaking story. I seriously cannot recommend this book enough.
I see fireworks: red, blue, purple, green, with a shower of golden stars. The Map of Salt and Stars is amazing. Please read this book.
The Map of Salt and Stars will be published on May 1st by Touchstone. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy. I will be buying this beautiful book in hardcover because I want to hold it in my hands and read it again and again. There are so many areas that I wanted to highlight and quote.
This was a lovely book and the narrator was wonderful....which is the only reason I didn't speed up through the descriptive language (I don't do well with detail
I like the back and forth between modern day Syria and past. Although the writing was perhaps more dense that I had anticipated
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The main story is a beautifully written, colorful description of a family fleeing Syria in 2011-2012. There is also another story that runs parallel, taking place 800 years earlier. I was hoping the two would connect with purpose, but unfortunately they really did not. I found myself anxious to get back to the main story.
I almost didn't make it through this, it got a little slow about half way through. I enjoyed the 2nd half more than the first half but have a major question, which I guess counts a bit as a SPOILER -
but, why on earth would Nour's mom give her map, like a puzzle, and tell her basically, "FIGURE IT OUT." Instead of just like, telling her where to meet her if they get separated. Seems a bit of a dicey gamble, no?
but, why on earth would Nour's mom give her map, like a puzzle, and tell her basically, "FIGURE IT OUT." Instead of just like, telling her where to meet her if they get separated. Seems a bit of a dicey gamble, no?
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
the ending of this book was juuuust a little too perfect, but besides that, i LOVED it. nour is such a compelling narrator. one of the things i loved most was her relationships with people, her interactions with them, they way she formed a connection with almost every person she met, and all of them had at least a slight impact on her. anywaysss read this book if you want to be emotionally devastated on every. single. page.
What is mapmaking but the telling of stories of the lands where we have travelled and the places that have shaped us?
This is what I think about constantly as I read Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar’s The Map of Salt and Stars, a story of adventure embedded into a story of loss and escape. The main narrative, a tale of refugees forced to leave Syria when their home is destroyed, is bleak but powerfully poignant today, as populism demonizes those coming to our borders seeking refuge. The tale within the tale, of a grand mapmaking adventure, is magically mystical—but it does more than mirror the main narrative. It reminds us that we are defined by the places where we travel, where we seek shelter. Mapmaking is but a way to articulate how we have been shaped by these spaces.
— — —
One of the most powerful sentences, one that made me pause and breathe deeply, in Joukhadar’s novel is only four words long:
“I smell burnt cumin.”
How much of our memories of tragedy, of loss, of heartbreak, are hidden in these small, passing, visceral, sensory reminders? It is remarkable how a scent, word, a sound, a frisson of touch, can take us back to a time gone by. It is profound that sometimes our only way to process tragedy is through these sensory markers: they are a map to our pasts, drawn across our bodies.
( Originally published on inthemargins.ca)
This is what I think about constantly as I read Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar’s The Map of Salt and Stars, a story of adventure embedded into a story of loss and escape. The main narrative, a tale of refugees forced to leave Syria when their home is destroyed, is bleak but powerfully poignant today, as populism demonizes those coming to our borders seeking refuge. The tale within the tale, of a grand mapmaking adventure, is magically mystical—but it does more than mirror the main narrative. It reminds us that we are defined by the places where we travel, where we seek shelter. Mapmaking is but a way to articulate how we have been shaped by these spaces.
— — —
One of the most powerful sentences, one that made me pause and breathe deeply, in Joukhadar’s novel is only four words long:
“I smell burnt cumin.”
How much of our memories of tragedy, of loss, of heartbreak, are hidden in these small, passing, visceral, sensory reminders? It is remarkable how a scent, word, a sound, a frisson of touch, can take us back to a time gone by. It is profound that sometimes our only way to process tragedy is through these sensory markers: they are a map to our pasts, drawn across our bodies.
( Originally published on inthemargins.ca)