As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow
By Zoulfa Katouh
Blurb
Burning with the fires of hope and possibility, AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW will sweep you up and never let you go.
Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She was even supposed to be meeting a boy to talk about marriage.
Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors. She knows that she should be thinking about leaving, but who will help the people of her beloved country if she doesn't? With her heart so conflicted, her mind has conjured a vision to spur her to action. His name is Khawf, and he haunts her nights with hallucinations of everything she has lost.
But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, when she crosses paths with Kenan, the boy she was supposed to meet on that fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all. Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are-not a war, but a revolution-and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria's freedom.
Our Review
"It reminds me that as long as the lemon trees grow, hope will never die."
Salama was training to be a pharmacist when war broke out in Syria. She lived with her parents and brother in their family home and she was to meet the boy she was going to marry.
Now Salama's family are dead. She helps treat patients in the local hospital because there is noone else, and she lives with her sister-in-law.
Salama is working on finding a way out of Syria but then she meets Kenan and begins to doubt her decision.
As Long as the Lemon Tree Grows was an incredible book. The sense of loss in this book was powerful, not just the loss of her family and everything she knew, also the loss of her planned future. At times this loss seemed almost overwhelming, but the message from the book is overall one of hope.
"I see fragments of a life where might happened."
Our Final Rating...
Read & Shared 12 Times.
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