This was an eye opening take on the immigration tales and refugee experiences. Except what was unique about this story, is that the family is moving back to the once-fled Syria. A very powerful and emotionally moving book. I can tell this story won't be for everyone, but those that it does touch, this story will stick with them for a while.

There are some books where words will never be able to adequately express the power and feelings within it's pages. The Map of Salt and Stars is one of these books. There feels like so much to say about how incredibly emotional this book is; and yet I struggle to find the words.

The Set-up
Split into two stories, Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar tells us the story of a girl in the past who overcomes prejudice and hardships to become a great warrior. This story is mythical in that it includes the magical Roc and giant snakes(from One Thousand and One Nights stories). At it's core this story is about the journey to map the world and our three travellers who are trying to do so (including our warrior girl).
The second story is the one that will break your heart more-so than anything. It is the story of a Syrian family, who lost their husband/father the previous year and so have limited means to survive to begin with. Then their home is bombed to nothing and they fight to cross the borders of four different countries, in perious ways, in order to find some sort of sanctuary.

Our Lead Girl
There is always something poignant about hearing a story of destruction and death from the words of a child. Our lead gal is a pre-teen whom has to find her both her inner and outer strength to survive what is to come. This is the plight of a refugee. And one that everyone in a first world country should read. It is a story that will break your heart and also give you hope. Of all the things it will do however is make you feel like you are this little girl. I connected with her in a way I have trouble expressing outloud.

Syrian Refugee Crisis
The obvious point of Joukhadar writing The Map of Salt and Stars is to bring awareness of the Syrian people's dire situation. For those of us who live in places where our homes are not at risk of being bombed, where our government (mostly) protects us, and where no one carries machine guns around just because; this may be a hard thing to come to terms with it. One day any one of us could be in a situation where we have nothing and our only hope is aid in a different country. I hope that doesn't happen, but if it does we'd want the support and help from others. So why is it that so many people today (who have means to help) begrudge these destitute people?
I believe it to be a lack of understanding. This book definitely gives a better understanding of what it means to lose everything, to have nothing and nowhere to go.

Overall
It's always unfortunate that our world has these types of stories. However it is reality. Pretending it doesn't exist or isn't 'our problem' is the wrong attitude; because if the tables were flipped I know each of us would expect aid from those that could.
I recommend everyone read this book to gain some perspective and find some new-found compassion within themselves to better understand the circumstances of people. At the end of the day we are all the same; we are all just people trying to survive.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

After the loss of her husband, Noor's mother decides to move the family back to Syria to be close to their family. But the Syria of today is nothing like what it had been in the past. After a shelling that destroys their house, Nour and her family find themselves fleeing; shadowing in a way, the journey of Rawiya, a young girl of 800 years ago, also looking for her way in the world. For me, this was a little demanding in that there were not maps of the areas mentioned in the book, only my opinion.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of The Map of Salt and Stars in exchange for an honest review.

The Map of Salt and Stars weaves together two stories. In one, 12-year-old Nour is still reeling from the loss of her father when a bomb destroys her family’s home in Syria. With only a few belongings in a burlap sack, the family journeys across borders in search of safety. The second story is told in the style of an old fable and follows Rawiya, who disguises herself as a boy and apprentices with a famous mapmaker.

This is a story of loss, survival, family, and hope, that is uplifting, yet utterly heartbreaking. It definitely isn't light reading. I found it slow to get into at first, and didn't fully connect with Rawiya's story until about halfway through. While I enjoyed the parts about Nour right from the start, heartache follows heartache as the story progresses and it's just so sad. Like, get the Kleenex out, you're gonna need it sad.

All that being said, it's 100% worth reading. The prose is beautiful, with imagery brought to life by Nour's synesthesia (which makes her perceive words and sounds as colours) and by the delightful ways the characters make sense of things. Sometimes these ‘revelations’ felt forced, but other times they felt so poignant that I had to screenshot them for later. Synesthesia is also something I'm really interested in (having first read about it in Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant), so I was pleasantly surprised to see it featured in this book.

The Map of Salt and Stars tells an important story, and it tells it really well. I read this book because I’d heard great things, and because of that I learned about Syrian culture and the refugee experience. I love reading about different cultures and the way that narrative is able to connect me to things happening in the real world. When I'm given a human connection (even if those humans are fictional), I find I can understand an issue so much more compared to when I hear or read about it in the news.

The takeaway? You should definitely read this book, especially if you're into descriptive storytelling and can handle a good tearjerker. And if that doesn't appeal, buy it for the cover.

4.5

A gorgeous cover for a gorgeous book. Nour, the main character, is 12 and has recently lost her father. Her and her family - mother, two older sisters - move back to Syria to try and restart their life after their loss. When a shell demolishes their house they must travel to the border and seek refuge in another country... then another, then another, and another...

Between the chapters about Nour, her family, and their quest to find <i>home</i>, is the story of Rawiya. 800 years previous to Nour's life, Rawiya is sixteen and sad about the death of her own father. Tired of being at home, she leaves for the market disguised as a boy in the hopes of finding a famous mapmaker named al-Idrisi. Rawiya, as a boy named Rami, becomes al-Idrisi's apprentice and travels the world with him.

Nour's father had told her the story of Rawiya many, many times, and it's how she stays calm, present, in the face of uncertainty. Their paths are very similar, which was sometimes too obvious to be helpful, but sometimes was perfect. I preferred Nour's story over Rawiya's because I connected better to the former, but Rawiya was a freaking badass. I'm glad Nour had someone like her to look up to because her life, within the story, was <i>bleak</i>.

My favourite thing about this novel is the fact that I liked every single (named) character. I really loved Nour. I thought her growth was incredible and really hit the mark on a 12 year old girl's thoughts and reactions to situations. I even liked Zahra, despite her being the one we weren't "supposed" to like. But she was eighteen(?) and <i>sad</i>. Nour was sad but Nour didn't understand a lot at the beginning of the novel. Everyone kept saying "when you are older you'll understand", which always annoyed her - but when I looked at Zahra and saw how she's coping - or not coping - I could tell that she was struggling. You could see that understanding something sometimes isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Nour eventually realizes that and by the end of the novel is able to understand Zahra more than in the beginning (and vice-versa). I really liked their relationship and their combined growth - within themselves and with each other.

I really liked that Nour had synesthesia. Her synesthesia manifested as grapheme-color synesthesia "in which individual letters and numbers are associated with specific colors and sometimes colorful patterns". This made the prose of the novel even more gorgeous than it already was.

Overall, I loved it. Originally I was thinking 3.5 or 4 stars because I was finding it difficult to read - I think I was just... sad - but then suddenly something changed, a switch was flipped, and it tipped into 4.5 stars for me. A really beautiful, poignant book that highlights the struggle that Syrian families face.

Full Disclosure, I chose this book based on its stunning cover, its eye-catching title, and the fact that the synopsis drops in the comparison to The Kite Runner . Set against the backdrop of the unrest in Syria and coupled with a 12th century romance adventure tale, The Map of Salt and Stars certainly sheds light on one family's story as they travel from America after their father's death to Syria, only to find themselves refugees fleeing across Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Libya and Morocco.

I appreciated the author's source list and information at the back of the book, the writing and characters were absolutely beautiful BUT I didn't find the "story" within the story that interesting. Nour and her family were much more captivating. As well, my mind began to wander around the 60% mark(this really isn't the author's fault, I am having one of those chaotic weeks at work and I think my mind is on other things), I may just re-read this again at some point to compare it to my first impressions.

I tried to love this book I really did, but it's just too flowery and descriptive for me, it has too much in it that I really just don't care about.

This book is not what I expected. I expected suspense and fear, edge of your seat kind of stuff. And that was a minor part of this, but really this book is about hope and family and what keeps people together. Remembering it's narrated by a prepubescant girl helps when you think about why it seems to gloss over some things. We see the world through Nour's eyes.

Some of the parallels between Rawiya's story and Nour's seemed a bit too blunt, but again I think that's the point.

Overall I enjoyed this, but it definitely was not what I expected at all.