Books › As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow
As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow
500 pages
A devastating but fiercely hopeful testament to love and resilience blooming in the rubble of a shattered homeland.
What it feels like
Reading this book is a profoundly visceral experience that grips your heart from the very first page and refuses to let go. The atmosphere is steeped in the harrowing reality of a besieged city, yet it is constantly pierced by breathtaking moments of tenderness and fierce, stubborn hope. The prose is both lyrical and unflinching, weaving hallucinatory manifestations of trauma with the stark, bloody truths of survival. It reads with a propulsive urgency, driven by impossible choices and the desperate need to protect loved ones. Despite the heavy, dread-soaked mood, a profound warmth radiates through the narrative, anchored by a deeply moving romance. It is a perfect match for readers who want to be emotionally devastated but ultimately uplifted by the sheer resilience of the human spirit.
- Mood
- harrowing
- tense
- bittersweet
- resilient
- dread-soaked
- Tone
- earnest
- urgent
- devastating
- impassioned
- tender
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- survivor's guilt · trauma of war · enduring power of hope · first love amidst destruction · loyalty to homeland · psychological toll of survival
- The writing
- Lyrical and visceral, blending stark, unflinching realism with haunting, hallucinatory metaphors.
- The arc
- Moves from suffocating fear and desperate survival to a heartbreaking yet fiercely hopeful embrace of love and revolution.
- Who it's for
- Readers who seek emotionally devastating but ultimately hopeful stories about resilience, love, and the human cost of conflict.
Content notes
- war violence
- medical trauma
- PTSD and hallucinations
- death of family members
- starvation
- grief
About the book
Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life.
Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move in an effort to keep her safe.
But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, Salama is torn between her loyalty to her country and her conviction to survive. Salama must contend with bullets and bombs, military assaults, and her shifting sense of morality before she might finally breathe free. And when she crosses paths with the boy she was supposed to meet one fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all.
Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are—not a war, but a revolution—and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria’s freedom.
Description from Open Library.
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