An emotional and moving story with themes of grief, family and hope. I liked how the characters grew on me and empathized with what they went through.

I loved reading this but I find that the pacing made it a little hard for me to finish before on-sale date, but still, it was an intriguing and moving read.

This review was originally published at BookBrowse, and can be found here: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr237568

A timely story of refugees escaping from war-torn Syria told by a foreign news correspondent who experienced the crisis firsthand.

"When you're a refugee, everyone has lost, at least for the time being... And the journey beyond those invisible lines can become just as heinous as living inside the fire."
– Atia Abawi, A Land of Permanent Goodbyes

As quality young adult fiction continues to be published, it is not often that a book distinguishes itself as required reading, but Atia Abawi's A Land of Permanent Goodbyes should be classed as such, not just for young adults but readers of all ages. Abawi's narrative traces the harrowing experiences of refugees fleeing Syria, putting a voice to the images of tragedy that flooded western media for a time before other news took their place.

The narrative follows Tareq's journey from Syria after his home is bombed and he loses the majority of his family, and as he looks for a place of refuge in Europe, anywhere that might be able to maybe one day feel like home. Though many books try to create space where readers will empathize with loss, this one brings every sense into play to bring it to life. And though we might not want to look, to feel the dust of crumpled buildings, the gnaw of hunger, the outrage of being treated as less than human, because we experience the world through Tareq's very tactile and emotionally grounded perception, we cannot look away.

While his direct journey offers one particular insight, the people Tareq meets along the way also point to how extensive and multifaceted the refugee crisis has become. This book does not allow the reader to hold any pretentions of glory regarding western actions in the Middle East over the past couple decades. Layers of repeating history, the range of the diaspora and the places people are desperate to escape, as well as the news headlines woven into the narrative add an inescapable element of realism that brings the reality of living in a state of global crisis and disenfranchisement home to the reader.

Abawi also incorporates the voice of Alexia, an American student volunteering to help refugees on the island of Lesvos, Greece. Through this character the author voices some sheltered and, perhaps, naïve impressions that are in many ways indicative of the western view of how to address this issue. While I think the split narrative is effective and adds to the feeling of simultaneous global and local actors affected by this crisis, I question if it is necessary to center on a western viewpoint at all, and wonder what the effect would have been if someone of a different background had provided the aid worker perspective. However, Abawi also uses Alexia as a way to criticize the trend of voluntourism, and to criticize global responses to crisis in terms of what outsiders think is needed to help, and what is actually needed locally.

I also question if the political construction of Sivan and Mariam working together as volunteers from two different sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is necessary. While it helps to frame some of the discourse about the intricacies of cultural differences and even language disparities in a part of the world that western media tends to paint in broad brushstrokes, it seems like a distraction from the narrative about the Syrian refugee crisis and a very heavy rhetorical move where the author subsumes the narrator.

Also, a very strong didactic tone running through the narrator's commentary runs the risk of losing the reader. Framed as the voice of Destiny, it feels a bit too much like the insertion of the author's editorializing within the text itself. However, the commentary is absolutely necessary - the broad statements made about what makes nations great and what makes a people great need to be said because, as can be seen from the headlines that mirror Tareq's journey, these are no longer truths that can be taken for granted.

Overall the criticisms I have of the text are not things that distract or detract from both the value and the necessity of this book - in this time, in this culture, at this point in history. The true strength of Abawi's prose comes from her background as a journalist. She grounds the narrative in the day to day lives of her characters while simultaneously balancing the omniscient narration through Destiny, providing scope and detail that will allow the reader to feel an immediacy while also understanding how this family's story fits within a greater historical context. Abawi manages to bring to human scale a pain too great and an experience that should never be known by anyone, but is known too well, by too many.

The family is at home, even if it is war outside, they still have themselves; Tareq, his younger brother Salim, the girls Farrah and Susan and the baby twins. He respected his mother Nour and his father Fayed and of course also his grand-mother. When a bomb hits their house, only Tareq and Susan can be saved, luckily their father was at work and is also alive. They decide it is time to leave the country, after such a loss, what is it that keeps them still there? But first, they need to go to Raqqa where Fayed’s brother lives who can lend them money. Yet, Raqqa is deep in the Daesh controlled area and going there is highly risky. But this is only the beginning of a journey which hopefully ends somewhere in Europe in peace and safety.

Atia Abawi, an American journalist who spent many years in the middle east as a correspondent and is a daughter of Afghan refugees, has chosen the number one topic in the news of the last two years for her second novel. It is her background, both personal and professional, which can be found throughout the novel; you feel in every line that she knows what she is writing about and that neither the emotions she puts in her characters nor the experiences they make are just invented, but exactly what people undergo. At times, the style of the novel has some traces of journalistic work, leaves the pure fiction, but this does not reduce the quality of the novel at all.

First of all, what I really appreciated was the fact that she does not victimize her characters. Already at the beginning of the novel, they are hit by a major loss, but they keep on fighting and do not rely on others. The risk a lot, see evil deeds committed by Daesh fighters, but still remain human themselves. The part I found especially interesting was Tareq’s time in Turkey. It is not only the large number of Syrians being stranded there and setting up a kind of community parallel to the Turkish, but first and foremost the way they are exploited, how people are trying to make profit from their fate which is annoying. Yet, I guess this is just reality.

It is just the story of one family, however, it represents what many people all over the world go through. None of them wanted to leave their country, none of them wants to live in another country of which they neither know the language nor the culture, many of them believe that those who have died are blessed because they do not have to undergo this. Considering all the negative news about refugees, we should not forget their perspective. Atia Abawi has given them a beautiful and engrossing voice.