Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - Evil Eye

Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

18 reviews

clovetra's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

etaf rum has done it again. god she’s such an amazing storyteller.

if i was the type of reader to give half stars, this would 100% be a 4.5/5. alas i am too anal about my storygraph & goodreads ratings matching so here we are.

i’ll say the only real “downside” i found with this novel is from purely an enjoyment stance, yara becomes very repetitive in her dialogue, sometimes making this book feel like im just reading the same chapter over and over again. i understand it is likely a commentary on the generational trauma yara is experiencing, and the fact she literally points out many times how she feels like she is going in a circle and needs to break the cycle in her family. purely as a reader, it does become tiring and frustrating, but honestly im not too mad at it as i understand the reasons thematically for it. the book at times also felt slightly devoid of anything beyond yara. yes i know she’s the protag but literally i know nothing about her kids. yet again another commentary on how yara is in her head so much she literally cannot define her children’s personalities but as a reader i wanted more!

i really enjoyed rum’s depiction of mental illness in this book. it felt very realistic, and having read rum’s previous book, i was worried we would get another incredibly depressing ending, so im thankful that in some form things were looking up for yara. this book really did feel like an extension of themes introduced in ‘a woman is no man’ in the best way, where instead of just making the author feel the depths of despair with a downer ending, i like that in this story yara is beginning to break free from her traumas one step at a time. i also thoroughly adored her character development. honestly this book felt like it rectified everything “missing” within ‘a woman is no man’, and even then that book was absolute fire. and so was this.

the ending was quite cute too, and i’m very pleased this book didn’t give in to letting the protagonist suffer a tragic fate, and instead let her grow beyond what is expected of her.

Content Warnings

campisforever's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is a really, really difficult one in which to get immersed if you're not into internal or cerebral plots (like me). It's also an honest, raw look into generational trauma, complex PTSD (C-PTSD), depression, and suicidal ideation. That said, Evil Eye is gorgeously written and well worth it. It took me quite a while to get through (a few days over six months) because I had to pick it up and put it down several times. The only thing that really worked for me was transitioning to listening to it on Spotify and tracking the reading with the pages in my physical copy. Making this change helped me, as a highly visual person, take a small step back from having to experience the raw feelings of the novel and gave me breathing room to react. Once I was able to get that room, I appreciated the story much more.

For the question about whether I found the characters loveable I said "It's complicated." Let me explain:

I love Yara deeply, I love Mira and Jude, and I love Silas and Josephine. I had strong reactions to Fadi, his family, and Yara's family in many ways, but to say they weren't "loveable" wouldn't necessarily be fair, since that's the point of the whole book. I think a fairer way to put it is that I was frustrated by how Fadi, etc., just wouldn't listen to Yara when Yara was working so hard on herself.

Also, if you're an academic, the first third might be frustrating, but it will pass, I promise. In general, I think that if you have the patience to give this book time, it will give what it needs to. In the end I was genuinely moved, but it's not something I would recommend blindly.

Content Warnings

cody_crumley's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Who cares what the world sees if you can’t even stand to look at yourself?”

This might be one of the hardest reviews I have had to write for a bookclub book in a while. This book hit me emotionally in a place that I have not visited since my father died.

The way that Etaf Rum’s writing handles the descriptions of mental health and associated themes like micro and macro aggressions that the main character Yara has thrown at her. The way the author describes intergenerational family trauma. A lot of books that try to focus on mental health themes like they miss the finer details or only graze the surface. The fact that Rum is able to paint in the grey area with such delicate touches, like being able to show Yara’s mother as both a terrible victim of mental/physical abuse from her husband but also a perpetrator of mental abuse to Yara as a child.

Yara and Fadi’s marriage has a lot of similarities to my parents marriage. Two people who probably should not have gotten married, rushed into a relationship/marriage because of outside influences and circumstances. Every dialogue conversation between Fadi and Yara, like when Yara asked him to help with cleaning up transported me back to when I was a child and the same conversation would have between them.

The overall depiction of mental health was stellar. The interaction with Yara and the first counselor, which does a wonderful job of portraying the gender dynamics when the therapist is male and the patient is female. The journey Yara goes on through this book to stop blaming herself for what happened during her childhood while actually sitting with her emotions is extremely powerful and should be required reading for anyone that has similar problems.

I also think reading this book right now is more important than ever because what is happening to Palestine via the genocide perpetrated by Israel. This looks into the cultural trauma that a Palestinian-American can go through, not being able to go back to where they are from because of human atrocities delivered by an entire country is sickening.

While I don’t think that everyone who reads this will be impacted like I was, I still would recommend this book to everyone because of the subject matter and it’s current relevance to the current situation in Palestine.

Content Warnings

sarah_thebooknerd's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This book is one that will sit with me for a long time. Etaf Rum is an auto read author for me and this book solidified that. The way in which she touches on families and generational trauma and breaking cycles and also mental health with this book is huge. I had such a connection to the FMC with the way that she would bottle things inside and it would get to a point where it would boil over. Be kind on yourself as you pick this one up.

Content Warnings

koiolee's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

This book has a purpose. But it's not really my cup of tea. I normally love books about marginalized communities fighting what they know to move forward, change, heal, but this book felt more like a therapy session than a story of healing. There are long segments of typical therapy advice, stories, jargon, that makes the book drag on. There's metaphors that the author tells you explicitly what they mean, instead of an implicit nod towards. It feels like you're dumbing it down for your audience, when your audience is likely college-level, college-educated, media literate readers. You're writing for a small audience, when your actual audience are more or less people like me.
EDIT: It gives Catcher in the Rye vibes omg.

Content Warnings

aliireads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective relaxing tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Good book! Very sad and hard to read at times. A little frustrating with Yara’s family and upbringing, but the ending is good. The last 1/3 kind of drags on, but the book was good overall. It covers abuse, spousal abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, depression, anxiety, etc. definitely a heavy book, but it also has some very sweet moments. Everyone deserves a friend like Silas. I would recommend it!

Content Warnings

notthatcosta's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

My favourite parts of the book were the loving descriptions of cooking Palestinian food and the exploration of generational trauma, both of which resonate particularly hard considering the plight of Gaza. On the other hand, the dialogue felt a bit static and watered down at points which pulled me out of the story often - as did the reputation of the physical manifestations of Yara's grief.

As a Cypriot, stories about the Nakba and reverence for olive trees and our ancestral land hit me hard and add gravitas to the ways in which Yara's heritage informs her struggles and create conflicts within her head.

The journal entries are challenging to read, and Yara's lack of self belief make it hard to root for her at points because of the extent to which she is suffering from generational trauma and PTSD, but ultimately the sense of liberation and self-discovery feels really earned and grounded with the book.

Content Warnings