Reviews

Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi

sanchara's review against another edition

I liked that the story is stylised in these verses, making them expressive. Given our unconventionally mute narrator this format comes across as astute. To serve this purpose the text strays away from being descriptive of any grounding in reality. This unfortunately made the reading experience feel wayward and in some way lacking. I was missing any warmth that I could return to, each time I picked up the book. But when I would lay it down, it always took me some time to escape the book’s atmosphere.

So I’m torn as to how I feel about this one. And I think that’s okay.

rimbluebooks's review

dark emotional

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

bethuhm's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It was an easy read and the illustration of the cover is lovely. The writing felt disjointed, I understood the abstract flow and storytelling but it felt empty. Lots of story’s in the book about other characters were left untold, David, Kirsty and the SA. There were areas of the story where I wanted to understand more, especially the mother’s mental health. I think there was a lot to take from the writing and the story to link to the mother but it took a while to see where it was going. I liked the gardening aspect and the escapism theme within the book. I felt like it was a conversational tone, and there wasn’t a plot, and maybe that was the point of the book as it was Ruby’s POV.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

oxnard_montalvo's review against another edition

Read this more or less in one go. A weird book. Not a story as such, but vignettes, memories of a life, of friendships and relationships. Abstract slice of life. Absorbing.

lavrendy's review against another edition

3.0

sweet, subtle vignettes from a young girl named ruby. nothing major to report except that it’s another great addition to my collections about girlhood and motherhood!

littlehonourings's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A poetic exploration of family, love and madness

nhazra1's review against another edition

5.0

4.5/5 stars, tw for SA in the later chapters

i really like prose-style fiction, and i loved how the different chapters of this book connected but were still distinct vignettes of ruby's life.

it's like that one tumblr post. mothers and daughters existing as wretched mirrors of each other; i am all you could have been and you are all i might be. started reading this during an especially difficult time for me and my own mother wound and found myself held in ruby's tiny, silent hands.

cchipmunck's review against another edition

5.0

the way in which a lack of words allows the speaker a freedom to float in the liminal. but this floating refuses to have order, it does not consent to the notion of “tradition” rather, those things that define us in the smallest ways are collated to craft steps that we can use to fall/float

thuhufa's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Childhood that turns into girlhood and sisterhood, told from the pov of a brown girl growing up in England, who stops speaking. She is learning the conditions of being a girl, of the world’s prescription of femininity and growing out of the innocence and ignorance of being a child by observing what is expected of her. She is observing her sister, her friends, her neighbour and most of all her mother who goes in and out of depressive episodes and her father who steps in as the primary carer for the family and most of all her mother. 
Mona Arshi is a poet and you can really tell, in the best way possible. Ruby was someone I wanted to befriend and protect. Loved loved this book.

branca's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0