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 had a normal teenager’s life.
Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move in an effort to keep her safe.
But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, Salama is torn between her loyalty to her country and her conviction to survive. Salama must contend with bullets and bombs, military assaults, and her shifting sense of morality before she might finally breathe free. And when she crosses paths with the boy she was supposed to meet one 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.
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
Pages: 417
Publishing Date: September 13th, 2022
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
MY THOUGHTS
Many people recommended this book to me and I keep avoiding it as I have a bad history with hyped books. After ignoring it for almost a year, I decided to try it and it felt like a perfect time to read it.
Salama just finished her first year of pharmacy program and enjoying a happy life with her small but loving family. She was carefree as all teenagers are supposed to be before long going to war against the dictatorship reached her city and turned her life around. People are getting injured and dead, and hospitals are desperate to recruit people with even a little experience in the field of medicine. That’s how Salama, who was supposed to be a pharmacist, ended up stitching people daily. She has to survive for her best friend and sister-in-law and her PTSD is getting weird. Her path crossed with Keenan, whose life is not much different than hers. Both are so similar yet so different.
I know this book was published last year and highlights the struggle Syrians have been facing. But I felt like I was reading what was happening in Gaza. Everything screamed of genocide happening in Gaza. At some point, it was mentioned that if the world gets to know what’s happening in Syria, they’ll help them and stop them from dying. That’s really irony because the world knows what’s happening in Gaza but it didn’t make any difference.
This book broke my heart in many ways and gave me hope several times. The representation of PTSD is so apt and the inner struggle of Salama is portrayed in such a wonderful way. In the end, this is not a story. It is the reality of many countries and many people and from history, it won’t change soon.
