Evil Eye

April 1, 2023

After challenging a colleague's racist comments, Yara is the one put on probation, and her Palestinian mother blames a family curse. Yara thinks that's nonsense, but she does begin reexamining her strict upbringing in a Brooklyn-based immigrant family. If she's managed to step outside their boundaries, why isn't she feeling fulfilled? Following Rum's highly acclaimed debut, A Woman Is No Man. Prepub Alert.

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July 15, 2023
Typical contemporary fiction about a woman's journey toward self-knowledge and identity is enriched by the protagonist's particular situation as the resentfully obedient daughter of Palestinian immigrants. On the first page, Yara, a wife and mother approaching 30, announces her intention--and by extension, author Rum's--to "reconcile past and present." Raised in Brooklyn within a tight Palestinian expatriate community, Yara has always been torn, wanting to honor the history and hardships of her ancestors while resisting many of her culture's prescriptions, agreeing to an arranged marriage but refusing hijab. For 10 years she has lived in North Carolina with her husband, Fadi, and their two daughters. Along the way she has earned a master's degree and works at a local college. But as her life begins falling apart, she can no longer avoid the unresolved conflict she has always felt--the safety of obedience versus an inner urge to break free and claim control over her life. Yara's central conflict revolves around her mother, a deeply troubled woman who, despite all-consuming anger and frustration, never considered leaving her abusive marriage. She always considered herself cursed and told Yara she was cursed, too. At a therapist's suggestion, Yara begins a journal to confront her past, but the repetitiveness of Yara's memories and her use of therapeutic jargon weaken the impact. More compelling are Yara's struggles within her own marriage. While Fadi is deeply flawed, he is neither stereotype nor villain. And Rum does not simplify the choices Yara faces as a woman whose ambition conflicts with family responsibility. The couple shares a surprising degree of intimacy--showering together most nights--and similar unhappy childhood memories. Whether Yara can break the vicious cycle in which she finds herself is the question. Rum's nuanced approach to difficult questions of individual and cultural identity is refreshing.

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August 28, 2023
A universal portrait of motherhood and intergenerational trauma, Rum’s sophomore effort (after the bestselling A Woman Is No Man) tells the story of North Carolina–based college art teacher and graphic designer Yara, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. Yara longs to travel, but her husband Fadi insists she stay home with their two young children. Then Yara is on the receiving end of a racist comment made by a woman colleague: “Please don’t take this the wrong way but it’s no secret that women from your country experience severe sexism and misogyny,” to which Yara responds, “I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., you fucking racist.” The incident results in her suspension from the college, and she’s mandated to counseling, where her therapist helps her unpack her family history. While Yara’s mother has always insisted their family is cursed, Yara’s therapy work leads her to realize that the cause of her woes is not fantastical, but rather the generational cycle of obedience: “Why was she... waiting for a man to give her permission,” Yara wonders about herself. The fierce feminist sentiments and nuanced approach to Yara’s fraught marriage and family history make for a winning combination. This satisfies on multiple levels. Agent: Julia Kardon, Hannigan Getzler Literary.

Starred review from August 1, 2023
Yara knows she should be happy. Unlike her grandmother, a Palestinian refugee, or her mother, saddled with a family and an abusive husband in a strange new country, Yara has lived a sheltered, privileged life in the U.S. with a hard-working husband, two beautiful daughters, and a university job. Yara's father, her husband Fadi, and Fadi's mother constantly remind her that her fits of discontent and depression are childish and nonsensical. But as Yara slowly begins to piece together her family's past, she realizes that her pain is rooted in rage at the sexism which allowed her brothers to pursue their careless dreams unfettered while she was promised only marriage, at Fadi's stubborn refusal to recognize her needs, and at how her mother's bitterness poisoned Yara's childhood. Dreaming her way back to idyllic memories of Palestine, Yara comes to terms with the crushing loss of their homeland and how their traumatic uprooting left its mark. Gradually, with the help of a supportive colleague, Yara rediscovers her sense of self, realizing she is like ""the olive trees in Palestine . . . chopped from the roots. How, even though they'd looked dead, they were the most resilient trees." Rum follows the acclaimed A Woman Is No Man (2019) with a deeply resonant tale of multigenerational trauma and survival.

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