With its captivating cover and interesting premise, Etaf Rum's Evil Eye caught my attention as well as a place on this blog. Following a young wife, mother, and art instructor, the book explores generational and childhood trauma, as well as the inescapable feeling that something is wrong, even though on the surface, everything should be fine.
The Situation: Yara Murad has done everything she can to build the life she has. Desperate to not become like her mother, Yara married young, and now lives away from her childhood home of Brooklyn. With two young girls of her own, Yara also teaches part-time at a local college, and loves having her own career, even if it does not pay much, and she does not care for many of her colleagues. She finds solace in her daily routine, which always ends with putting the girls to bed, taking a shower, and eating dinner with her husband, Fadi. But while everything looks normal, Yara cannot understand her sudden bursts of anger, or why she cannot shake a near-constant heavy feeling of sadness.
The Problem: When Yara has an intense exchange with a fellow instructor, it puts her job in jeopardy, and seemingly everything else in her life that she has been trying to maintain, including how she has dealt with her childhood, her feelings about her mother, and how she feels about her own marriage. Her attempts to talk to Fadi often end in an argument, and her own father is certainly not any help, as he believes she should be happy with what she has, and that her only concerns should be keeping Fadi happy and taking care of the kids. But soon, her life that everyone else seems to think is perfectly fine is not enough for Yara, and she cannot help but go back to her mother's belief that they are cursed. If she hopes to find the happiness she has found to be so elusive, she must confront what happened in her past, and find who she really wants to be.
Genre, Themes, History: This is a work of fiction, set in the modern-day U.S. in the Carolinas. As a Palestinian-American woman raised in Brooklyn, Yara left the home she grew up in when she married Fadi. Intent on not following in her mother's footsteps, Yara insisted on being able to finish school and work after marriage, resulting in a part-time faculty position at a local college. While most chapters follow Yara as she moves through her days - taking care of her daughters, cooking, cleaning, teaching, navigating social interactions with her coworkers, preparing herself mentally for interactions with her mother-in-law - the book also diverts to entries in Yara's journal, which she is encouraged to make use of after a confrontation at work. The entries allow Yara to confront her past and how it has shaped her future, before hopefully moving forward with her healing.
My Verdict: The descriptions are what absorbed me with this one, and not necessarily of the places and things, but of the feelings and events. My life experiences are nothing like what Yara has gone through, and yet, somehow, Rum is able to translate the fear, frustration, anger, and sense of loss that the protagonist is experiencing. If it is not her colleagues making assumptions about her, then it is her supervisor telling her she is not social enough. And when her husband minimizes her feelings, her father makes everything worse by doing the same. It is a heart-breaking journey of someone who has endured immense trauma, while also struggling to make sense of it, while surrounded by people who seemingly are not making an effort to understand. This is a hard read, but an eye-opening one.
Favorite Moment: Although the circumstances leading up to it are tough, Yara decides to begin painting in earnest, and much like the journaling, it becomes its own form of therapy.
Favorite Character: Josephine is the mother of one of Yara's new friends, Silas. The relationship starts with a simple invitation to lunch at her house during a work day, and proves to be one that helps Yara as she makes difficult decisions that will shape the rest of her life.
Recommended Reading: I recommend They Called Us Exceptional by Prachi Gupta, as well as Maame by Jessica George.
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