Name: Evil Eye
Rating: 3.972222222222222 (18 reviews)
ISBN: 9780063211728

Etaf Rum

Evil Eye

Lindsay

All roads lead to you, even those I took to forget you.

She knew she was moving too fast, racing from one task to the next. The problem was, if she slowed down, everything only felt worse.

It was because all her life she’d learned to feel safer in obedience than to be free.

Tabea Lüth

Teta opened her mouth then closed it. She shook her head, but tears welled in her eyes. "You don't have to go, ya binti. You can stay here with me, at home in your country.“ “I wish I could, Yumma," you told her. “But Palestine is no longer ours, and there's nothing left for me here." 

During her first term teaching the intro course, Jonathan had sat in on her class and was stunned to see she was teaching the works of African American painter Philemona Williamson and Lebanese painter Helen Zughaib, that she was refusing to center whiteness as the custodian of high art.

"I think it’s obvious what‘ happening here“, Mama finally said. “What?" "You're cursed." Yara blinked, rubbing her eyes. “What do you mean, cursed?“ “With the evil eye, of course.” “Why would anyone curse me?" "Why wouldn't they?" Mama said. "You're educated and successful. You're married to a wonderful man, and you have two beautiful children. That's a recipe for envy, habibti. But you should already know this by now."

“If a small garden in a refugee camp is enough to bring about the evil eye,” Mama continued, “what can be said about your life? All those fancy photos you put on the internet for everyone to fawn over?" Yara gave an embarrassed laugh. "I didn't realize the evil eye applied online." “Of course it does when you put your private life there for the world to see!" Mama clucked her tongue, then lowered her voice to a tight whisper. "Displaying your blessings too proudly will only bring you hasad. You know how dangerous envy can be." 

“Right.” He nodded, his cheeks flushed. "I guess I meant, where is your family from?" “A country that doesn't exist." Silas looked at her. "How's that?" She sighed, not wanting to get into the politics. After a moment she said, “They live a few miles outside Jerusalem. “You’re Israeli, then?" "No," she said abruptly. "Im Palestinian."

She had never belonged anywhere-not in Brooklyn, not in Palestine, and certainly not here. Her soul had always been cracked in the center, her body split in two, her feet stretched so wide between opposite sides of the globe that she couldn't stand straight. She was American but un-American: Arab, but not entirely.

"After the Israeli planes bombed the olive trees," Teta began, "the soldiers gave us thirty minutes to leave our home. I remember watching my mother turn off the stove before leaving the house. My father locked the front door and clutched the house key, as if certain we would return soon. It seems so foolish now, looking back. But what we were experiencing was unfathomable." She frowns, pushing out the words slowly. "Can you imagine someone breaking into your home, on land you've lived on for generations, and forcing you to leave?"

"We're still crammed together, but it's better than the tents. When they built these shelters, they also built water sources, schools, clinics, and centers. I remember feeling so happy at the possibility of a new house, not having to carry water buckets over my head, even someday going to school.

But my father only cried. He knew it meant we would never return home."

"I used to wonder the same thing," Teta says. "My father said that if we gave up on the camp, it meant we'd given up on our right of return. He wanted to go back to Yaffa, where his grandparents and great-grandparents were bom.

He was right, you know. Even after he died, I couldn't give up and leave. We could never belong anywhere else. Yaffa is who we are."

Laura Wilson

She had assumed earning her degrees would move her beyond her limitations-her sheltered upbringing, her immigrant background, the fact that she had not had access to art and the feeling that had stemmed from these limitations, that she did not have a right to create it. But her education had changed little inside of her. If anything, earning these degrees but still not producing anything herself only proved that she would never be the kind of woman she dreamed herself to be-creative, expressive, free - and that she hadn't escaped those barriers at all.

Why didn't the world recognize that identity and privilege were accidents of birth? How much more empathy would people have if they understood that their position in life was decided not by goodness or merit or fault or need but by luck and chance, a toss of a coin?

Saffia

I do not yet understand my grandmother's need to retell the events of the day, her obsession with speaking the words aloud, as though desperate for someone to validate her experience. I have not yet learned what she has, that refusing to acknowledge a pain endured hurts worse than the pain itself. 

I looked at her in disbelief. Even thinking about her loss fills me with so much sorrow, I can't bear to imagine how she might have felt living through it.

Evil Eye has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

A Novel

This was a really heartbreaking book that touched on so many themes, some of which include: domestic violence, gaslighting, abuse, colonisation, duty and obligation, the search for meaning, racism, healing in a toxic culture. It gives you an idea of the generational trauma experienced by refugees and immigrants and how, even though you may be in a safer country, your mindset, life and future are shaped by it. I love that the characters have Palestinian roots, and there are references to Palestinian culture, the amazing food, the sad reality of having your home stolen from you and not quite feeling like you belong anywhere. A relevant book, beautifully written. 

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents.

Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She’s gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough?

After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she’s facing, and while Yara doesn’t really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes.

Shaken to the core by these indictments of her life, Yara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real—and damaging—implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.

4 stars - I liked this book! Yara (main character) is born to Palestinian parents in the US. As an adult, she slowly realizes what happened during her parent’s marriage and how much it affects her. Yara blames herself for it but takes the powerful decision to dissect everything. I went in with no expectations and quickly realized that the topics at hand are important: intergenerational trauma, migration and what goes on around it, Palestine and its rich culture, but also not so great topics such as domestic violence and gaslighting. These topics were brought to the forefront in a great way and how this trickles down if not taken care of. Giving the audiobook a 3.75 bcs Yara’s diary entries were sometimes hard to follow, but the book is definitely a 4-star read!

Joy KBA

Heather Margaret

“It was like her body was an ocean, and these feelings would always come and go like the tides. The task was not to let herself be pulled away by one of the currents. The task was to accept that her insides would feel violent and tumultuous at times, and to be okay with that.”
Beautiful writing, so many of the moments made my heart hurt. A great book about mental health and the struggles it can cause within different cultures.

❓ #QOTD Do you have any superstitions? ❓

🦇 Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough? Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she’s facing, and while Yara doesn’t really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes.

💜 I could spend a year writing this review and it would not convey everything I need to say, nor the vast depth of emotion I felt while reading it. Instead, I'll start by saying thank you. Thank you, Etaf Rum, for a story that captures the complexity of being a Palestinian-American woman and daughter of immigrants. Thank you for illustrating the trauma that can leak from one generation from the next -- trauma we're seeing and feeling in real-time, as Palestinian families continue getting displaced from their homes. Thank you for crafting a woman like Yara, who, despite trying so hard to defy the expectations and limitations set on her, still struggles, because that is the reality of this life. A woman who, despite pain and invisible scars, took a step forward, embarking on a journey of self-exploration and change. Those words, "self-exploration and change," seem so simple. Maybe, to some people, they are. But to women of a certain background, certain upbringing, they seem impossible. From experience, I know what writing these perceptions (both through my own journal entries and through characters) can feel like. It's no easy feat, and takes quite a bit of self-exploration into yourself, the writer. So again, and a thousand times over, thank you. I've seen more of myself, my background, my history, than I could ever express in a review.

💜 Yara says, "I want to be a voice for Palestinians...I want to make people feel seen." Rum writes, "Her whole life, she'd believed reliability would never been granted to someone like her...women like her who were searching for themselves in the art around them, women whose experienced needed to be legitimized." That's what you've done. That's what this story, what Rum and Yara's story, has accomplished. 

💙 I do wish we'd seen more positives to the Palestinian-American experience, if not through Yara's life, than through other Palestinians around her. But her isolation was a source of her depression, so I understand why we didn't see how other women like her were living their lives. I also wish we saw more consequences for her husband's actions. Then again, how often are men ever really held accountable?

🦇 Recommended to all readers, namely anyone to learn more about the Palestinian-American experience. Please remember, this is only one perspective, one version, one life. Millions have experienced the same root history; a catalyst that's echoed outward, uniting us through a shared experience. But as Yara said, olive trees grow back twice as large after they're burned to ash. 

🧿 Mental Health (Depression/Anxiety)/Therapy

❝ But she also had dreams of making meaningful work, leaving her mark on the world. She felt certain, in the depths of her being, that something beautiful wanted to be created through her. ❞

❝ Why didn’t the world recognize that identity and privilege were accidents of birth? How much more empathy would people have if they understood that their position in life was decided not by goodness or merit or fault or need but by luck and chance, a toss of a coin? ❞

❝ It was because all her life she’d learned to feel safer in obedience than to be free. ❞

❝ Language was often a bridge, but sometimes a barrier. No matter how she chose her words, they would likely come out a bit distorted, inadequate...Silence was better than being misunderstood, erased, unseen for who you really were. ❞

❝ Her soul had always been cracked in the center, her body split in two, her feet stretched so wide between opposite sides of the globe that she couldn’t stand straight. ❞

Jazelle H

🦇 Evil Eye Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD Do you have any superstitions? ❓
 
🦇 Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough? Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she’s facing, and while Yara doesn’t really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes.

💜 I could spend a year writing this review and it would not convey everything I need to say, nor the vast depth of emotion I felt while reading it. Instead, I'll start by saying thank you. Thank you, Etaf Rum, for a story that captures the complexity of being a Palestinian-American woman and daughter of immigrants. Thank you for illustrating the trauma that can leak from one generation from the next -- trauma we're seeing and feeling in real-time, as Palestinian families continue getting displaced from their homes. Thank you for crafting a woman like Yara, who, despite trying so hard to defy the expectations and limitations set on her, still struggles, because that is the reality of this life. A woman who, despite pain and invisible scars, took a step forward, embarking on a journey of self-exploration and change. Those words, "self-exploration and change," seem so simple. Maybe, to some people, they are. But to women of a certain background, certain upbringing, they seem impossible. From experience, I know what writing these perceptions (both through my own journal entries and through characters) can feel like. It's no easy feat, and takes quite a bit of self-exploration into yourself, the writer. So again, and a thousand times over, thank you. I've seen more of myself, my background, my history, than I could ever express in a review.

💜 Yara says, "I want to be a voice for Palestinians...I want to make people feel seen." Rum writes, "Her whole life, she'd believed reliability would never been granted to someone like her...women like her who were searching for themselves in the art around them, women whose experienced needed to be legitimized." That's what you've done. That's what this story, what Rum and Yara's story, has accomplished. 

💙 I do wish we'd seen more positives to the Palestinian-American experience, if not through Yara's life, than through other Palestinians around her. But her isolation was a source of her depression, so I understand why we didn't see how other women like her were living their lives. I also wish we saw more consequences for her husband's actions. Then again, how often are men ever really held accountable?

🦇 Recommended to all readers, namely anyone to learn more about the Palestinian-American experience. Please remember, this is only one perspective, one version, one life. Millions have experienced the same root history; a catalyst that's echoed outward, uniting us through a shared experience. But as Yara said, olive trees grow back twice as large after they're burned to ash. 

✨ The Vibes ✨
🧿 Palestinian-American FMC/Author
🪬 Journal Entries
🧿 Feminism
🪬 Literary Fiction
🧿 Mental Health (Depression/Anxiety)/Therapy
🪬 Motherhood
🧿 Trauma/Abuse

💬 Quotes 
❝ But she also had dreams of making meaningful work, leaving her mark on the world. She felt certain, in the depths of her being, that something beautiful wanted to be created through her. ❞
❝ Why didn’t the world recognize that identity and privilege were accidents of birth? How much more empathy would people have if they understood that their position in life was decided not by goodness or merit or fault or need but by luck and chance, a toss of a coin? ❞
❝ It was because all her life she’d learned to feel safer in obedience than to be free. ❞
❝ Language was often a bridge, but sometimes a barrier. No matter how she chose her words, they would likely come out a bit distorted, inadequate...Silence was better than being misunderstood, erased, unseen for who you really were. ❞
❝ Her soul had always been cracked in the center, her body split in two, her feet stretched so wide between opposite sides of the globe that she couldn’t stand straight. ❞

Another deep cut from Etaf Rum. I can’t wait to read whatever she does next. 

Bethany Jenkins

             I know I read Etaf Rum’s first novel, 

, because Goodreads says I did it’s in my book log from 2020, but I have little memory of that book.  In my defense, I’ve read around 1000 books since then, and it’s pretty impossible to recall every book I’ve finished (or not finished, some of them ended up on my DNF list). Unfortunately, I didn’t leave a review for that one, so I don’t even have a written record of how I felt about it.  This book made it onto my list because it was a Book of the Month Club selection (I read all the books, even if I don’t order physical copies of them), and I honestly didn’t even remember the author’s name until I started the book and was reminded that she also had also been previously published. 

            I had few expectations of this book when I started, and the majority of this one just made me mad.  I highlighted NUMEROUS passages that showed the amount of gaslighting and abuse this woman went through, and I was fully prepared to hate everything about this story.  Culture aside, an abused woman is an abused woman, and at first it seemed like this book was going to justify the abuse because that’s how things were done in Palestinian-American families.  As I read, I recalled flashes of Rum’s previous novel, so along the way I felt confident the woman in THIS book wasn’t going to just sit there and allow the mistreatment to continue, and I was immensely relieved. 

            Yara, mother of two little girls, found her life to be stifling and stagnant.  She found a small amount of joy in the single college class she was able to teach, but eventually even that was taken from her.  Struggling with her own identity and happiness, she continued to be told by others (men) that she has everything a woman needs and definitely more than she should want.  She’s got a home, she’s got kids, and that is what a woman should want out of life.  Yara and her husband barely talk and never talk about anything of value.  Yara’s father calls her ungrateful and selfish because she wants to find joy and worth outside of the home as well as in…and it almost felt like she was being told that she had no right to joy, and certainly no right to be valued as a person outside of being a wife and a mother. 

            Eventually, Yara manages to extract herself from the loveless marriage.  I cheered.  Yara was able to discover that what she was experiencing in her home wasn’t normal and shouldn’t be happening, so she left.  I applauded Rum’s use of mental healthcare in this book, as it continues to be scorned by many people, but especially those in Yara’s culture.  It made me think of my own brother, who years ago was insistent that depression and anxiety were decisions, and all you had to do was just change your mind…and POOF, it would go away.  I personally went through years of therapy and was well aware that was not true, but it took my brother many years before he would also find mental health assistance useful.  I don’t think I’ll ever understand the stigma, especially when a young mother seeks out help, but at least now we’re talking about it.

            I know nothing about Etaf Rum except what is written in the blurb at the end of the book.  She is also a Palestinian-American divorced mother, so I feel like this book might be more autobiographical than fiction.  Or not.  However, it felt like this book came from some deeply personal experiences, which made the book just a little bit better than others.  I appreciated Rum’s focus on personal satisfaction and mental healthcare, and I loved that Yara got out.  This is a great book.    

Kristen Claiborn

             I know I read Etaf Rum’s first novel, A Woman is No Man, because Goodreads says I did it’s in my book log from 2020, but I have little memory of that book.  In my defense, I’ve read around 1000 books since then, and it’s pretty impossible to recall every book I’ve finished (or not finished, some of them ended up on my DNF list). Unfortunately, I didn’t leave a review for that one, so I don’t even have a written record of how I felt about it.  This book made it onto my list because it was a Book of the Month Club selection (I read all the books, even if I don’t order physical copies of them), and I honestly didn’t even remember the author’s name until I started the book and was reminded that she also had also been previously published. 

            I had few expectations of this book when I started, and the majority of this one just made me mad.  I highlighted NUMEROUS passages that showed the amount of gaslighting and abuse this woman went through, and I was fully prepared to hate everything about this story.  Culture aside, an abused woman is an abused woman, and at first it seemed like this book was going to justify the abuse because that’s how things were done in Palestinian-American families.  As I read, I recalled flashes of Rum’s previous novel, so along the way I felt confident the woman in THIS book wasn’t going to just sit there and allow the mistreatment to continue, and I was immensely relieved. 

            Yara, mother of two little girls, found her life to be stifling and stagnant.  She found a small amount of joy in the single college class she was able to teach, but eventually even that was taken from her.  Struggling with her own identity and happiness, she continued to be told by others (men) that she has everything a woman needs and definitely more than she should want.  She’s got a home, she’s got kids, and that is what a woman should want out of life.  Yara and her husband barely talk and never talk about anything of value.  Yara’s father calls her ungrateful and selfish because she wants to find joy and worth outside of the home as well as in…and it almost felt like she was being told that she had no right to joy, and certainly no right to be valued as a person outside of being a wife and a mother. 

            Eventually, Yara manages to extract herself from the loveless marriage.  I cheered.  Yara was able to discover that what she was experiencing in her home wasn’t normal and shouldn’t be happening, so she left.  I applauded Rum’s use of mental healthcare in this book, as it continues to be scorned by many people, but especially those in Yara’s culture.  It made me think of my own brother, who years ago was insistent that depression and anxiety were decisions, and all you had to do was just change your mind…and POOF, it would go away.  I personally went through years of therapy and was well aware that was not true, but it took my brother many years before he would also find mental health assistance useful.  I don’t think I’ll ever understand the stigma, especially when a young mother seeks out help, but at least now we’re talking about it.

            I know nothing about Etaf Rum except what is written in the blurb at the end of the book.  She is also a Palestinian-American divorced mother, so I feel like this book might be more autobiographical than fiction.  Or not.  However, it felt like this book came from some deeply personal experiences, which made the book just a little bit better than others.  I appreciated Rum’s focus on personal satisfaction and mental healthcare, and I loved that Yara got out.  This is a great book.    

A beautiful & heartbreaking, yet hopeful novel about a Palestinian-American woman, Yara, working through generational trauma. I’ve never read a book that handled mental health as well as this one. Etaf Rum shows how these feelings of grief, frustration, guilt, loneliness and sadness can bubble over and hurt those around us, that healing is messy and confusing, but ultimately that there is hope. 

There are so many layers & things about this book that make it good and one of my favorite elements was the use of food/art and showing how they can be used to foster connections, share cultures and express emotions. I really loved Yara & Silas’ relationship and I think more books should have such sweet & supportive friendships in them. 

I will definitely be picking up more of Etaf Rum’s books. 

Alli

A beautiful & heartbreaking, yet hopeful novel about a Palestinian-American woman, Yara, working through generational trauma. I’ve never read a book that handled mental health as well as this one. Etaf Rum shows how these feelings of grief, frustration, guilt, loneliness and sadness can bubble over and hurt those around us, that healing is messy and confusing, but ultimately that there is hope. 

There are so many layers & things about this book that make it good and one of my favorite elements was the use of food/art and showing how they can be used to foster connections, share cultures and express emotions. I really loved Yara & Silas’ relationship and I think more books should have such sweet & supportive friendships in them. 

I will definitely be picking up more of Etaf Rum’s books. 

I wish I had better known what this was about and where it would go, so maybe I would've known that I'm not healthy enough for it right now.

Yara ends up in unwanted counseling to keep her job after she blows up over racist comment by a coworker. What unfolds is a story of generational trauma, family pain, and marital stress. It was hard to read, but ultimately hopeful.

Evil Eye

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