Jalilah's Reviews > The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story

This is one of the most beautiful love stories I've ever read, and it is not at all a romance novel! In fact it's not even fiction it is a biography!
The Locust and the Bird is non-fiction, the telling of author Hana Al-Shayhk's own mothers life. Nevertheless it reads like a novel. Interestingly enough, a complaint I've often read about Al-Shaykh's novels is that her characters are not likeable, but that is not at all the case here! When her mother Kamila was a little girl growing up in the south of Lebanon, so poor that she had to gather left over wheat from the fields for her meals, I just wanted to adopt her!
After moving to Beirut with her mother and brother she is not allowed to go to school, rather sent to work with a seamstress. It is here that she meets a young student named Mohammed who will become the love of her life. After her older sister dies, she is forced at age 14 to marry her decades older brother in law. As a reader I just wanted to rescue her! I laughed at her mischievous and rebellious antics to get away from her controlling family. As a young women I applauded her bravery to leave her husband to be with her true love.
As she matures into witty, clever and resourceful woman she becomes the type of person that everyone would want to have for a friend. A large part of this story takes place in pre-civil war Lebanon. One gets a good feeling what the Beirut, once named " the Paris of the Middle East" must have been like. Reading this book took me on a voyage back in time to a different place leaving me with the feeling that Kamila is someone I've known very well. Highly recommended for everyone interested in reading something different!