Evil Eye

Etaf Rum’s latest work reminds us how easy it is to become stuck peering backward, imprisoned by unhealed trauma, pain and guilt. The author explores these complex issues via a touching albeit slow-paced story that examines family dysfunction over multiple generations. In the process, “Evil Eye” provides insights into Palestinian culture (talk about a timely issue.) The middle part of this novel was a bit of a slog for me. Some reviewers have mentioned vignettes that tend to be repetitive. My sense is that the familiar anecdotes were intentionally used to illustrate the protagonist's internal suffering. In the end, Rum delivers an impressive and thought-provoking tale that underscores valuable life lessons.

This is a very sad but very hopeful and moving story about a woman who is trying to detangle who she is and what she wants versus the expectation of those around her. Yara's story was one I definitely recognized. She struggles to be the "perfect" mother, wife and homemaker. But she also wants to have a career and be her own person, fulfill her own dreams. But her husband doesn't understand her drive. He makes enough money to support them, why does she need this other stuff in her life?

I love that this story also explored Yara's generational trauma and pressures. It isn't just her husband that wants her to stay in line and act like a good wife. Her family, his family - even the culture and village they live in has expectations that she show more perform certain functions in order to be "good." It was an interesting exploration and I appreciated what, I felt, was a new perspective for me. Very well told, very moving story about finding yourself. I really liked it. show less

This was far too relatable, which made reading it a bit painful and a bit boring at times. Like yikes that's a little close to home, and also been there done that can we move on. To be clear, I am not from a culture like Palestinian American women come from, I am not in an abusive relationship, but being lost in a fog of trauma-induced depression and anxiety in the midst of parenting and trying to exist outside of your role as wife and mother are things I have lived so recently. This beautifully weaves our main character's realization of the need for help and change with flashbacks to her childhood with her mother. The process of healing is unfurled delicately, and we end with a satisfying decision to remove the likelihood of passing on show more generational trauma. A lot of the plot is internal dialogue, which made this skimmable in places, but this is another amazing book from Rum overall. show less

Yara is growing more and more unhappy with her life. Her goal before she got married was to have more autonomy in her marriage than her mother did. She agreed to marry Fadi only if she could go to college and then get a job after they married. That kind of freedom is rare in her culture. She slowly realizes she is not as free as she thought she was. She went directly from her father’s control to her husband’s control. Sure, her husband is more permissive than her father was with her mother and her, but permissive is the keyword. She still has to ask him before she can do certain things. The breaking point comes when she wants to go abroad as a chaperone on a student trip and Fadi says she can’t. There is also an incident at her show more workplace and she has to go to counseling because of it.

Evil Eye was an authentic portrayal of depression and how it can cause both sadness and anger. It’s also about the struggle that women have to balance family and work life. In Yara’s case, she actually wanted to work more but her husband would only let her work during the hours that their kids were in school. She feels adrift.

I liked Evil Eye but I thought it got a little repetitive. That may have been the point though. Yara feels like her life is on autopilot, doing the same thing day after day. I feel like I got the point though and it could have been trimmed up a bit. That’s a small quibble though. I do recommend Evil Eye. I liked it enough that I recently bought Etaf Rum’s first book, A Woman is No Man and I can’t wait to read it. show less

3.5

I loved her previous novel and I looked forward to this one. But, I found the first 25 pages to be repetitive and uninteresting. Oh well.

4.5 Review to come...