A review by campisforever
Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

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.
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