Every now and then, you come across a book that you know will break your heart. As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh was such a book. Beautiful. Horrible. Hope. Despair. This book is a perfect blend of emotions that together paint the picture of an awful reality…still happening while I am writing this review.

As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow

As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow is the story of Salama, a pharmacy student whose life is blown apart by the Syrian revolution. Having lost her parents and brother, she’s now struggling to make a crucial decision: will she keep her last promise to her brother and flee the country, together with her pregnant sister-in-law, or will she stay and continue to fight for Syria’s freedom and her revolutionaries? Her desperation and trauma are ever present, especially so in the form of her imaginary companion Khawf, who never leaves her side and finally succeeds in convincing her to leave her country. But then, she unexpectedly meets someone from her past, who turns her present upside down. Suddenly, leaving seems even less of an option than ever before.

A beautiful and horrible tale

I usually pride myself in not being surprised by plot twists that often, but this book shocked me to the core. I had not seen its plot twist coming AT ALL. My poor heart…

As I’m mainly a fantasy reader, this book was not my usual cup of tea, but I have loved it immensely. It was beautifully written, the story was engaging, and it succeeded perfectly in one of its primary aims: to create awareness about what’s happening in Syria. I knew there was a war, of course, but I didn’t know a great deal about it. This book encouraged me to dive into the history of the revolution and to learn more about the conflict, and about Syria in general. When I stepped into the Mediterranean Sea this summer, the story of As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow was the first thing that came to mind, it had left such an impression.

I cannot wait to read more by this author! Without a doubt: four out of five gemstones!

Age Category: For a broad audience

Representation:  PTSD

Trigger Warnings (click here, may contain spoilers)

Warnings for wartime violence, attempted assault, loss of family members.

Do you want to discover more?

If my review inspired you to pick up the book, don’t hesitate to check it out at Goodreads or at the below online stores.

Amazon.nl: Hardcover Edition

Amazon.nl: Paperback Edition

Amazon.nl: eBook Edition

Fairyloot is soon launching a special edition of this book as part of their Mortal Editions. This variant will have a beautiful lemon tree motif sprayed on its edges, its cover will have an exclusive colourway change, and there will be foiling on the hardcover and artwork on the endpapers. Moreover, this edition will be signed by the author.

Similar to this

In this post, I decided to highlight some other amazing novels by authors with roots in MENA.

First up, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, by the amazing Tahereh Mafi, best known from her Shatter Me Series. A Very Large Expanse of Sea explores what it was like to be a teenage Muslim girl in America after the attacks of 9/11. This book was one of the first YA contemporary novels that I ever read and even though I had not expected initially to like it, I soon fell in love with it and Tahereh Mafi has now become one of my auto-buy authors. Check out my review here.

Secondly, one of my all-time favourite fantasy duologies: Sands of Arawiya by Hafsah Faizal. This series is an absolute must-read if you’re into strong female heroines, assassins with a conscious, amazingly brilliant side characters, and wicked villains. My spoiler-free series review can be found here.