Julie Davis's Reviews > Jasmine and Fire: A Bittersweet Year in Beirut

Jasmine and Fire by Salma Abdelnour
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did not like it

This is an Amazon Vine book.

What a mish-mash.

I read to page 130 before this book solidified my thinking about bloggers who write books. They usually need to be very carefully edited and that doesn't happen enough of the time.

Too much description for every single thing from having coffee to walking down the street to going out at night. Description is welcome in a memoir/travelogue, to be sure, but not when everything mentioned explodes adjectives, including some that the author has made up such as "a small, divey Hamra bar" or "some hipstery bars in town." As well, there is no narrative focus for the reader to follow. The author does little more than wander through town, drink coffee, socialize in the evening with friends, write, and agonize over whether she'll ever find a place where she "belongs." That can make a wonderful reading, especially when set in an interesting location like Beirut. However, the lack of focus leaves the reader being jerked from subject to subject to subject and then back again, all in as many paragraphs. That is the pattern for the book and it left me feeling as if I was in a tornado.

Blogging well is one thing. Writing a lengthy book is another. A good editor can help the blogger learn how to make that transition gracefully. This poor author had no such help and since her professional writing experience is through magazine articles and the like, she is used to writing short pieces.

There are many well-written memoir/travelogues that would-be authors may be interested in reading to see how to tell a clear story while including information about many things. My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme; Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie; The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley, and Madeleine L'Engle's Crosswicks Journals (A Circle of Quiet is my favorite) all come to mind. Perhaps the most helpful for this particular author (and more specifically the editor for Jasmine and Fire) would be the Crosswicks Journals. Each flows through time by the months and season, as Jasmine and Fire does, but the clarity of thought and communication are simply fantastic.

As I say, I put most of the blame for this lack of focus on the editor.

That doesn't make the book any easier to read. What a shame. It had great potential.
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Reading Progress

Finished Reading
May 3, 2012 – Shelved

Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)

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David Entirely agree with the review


Julie Davis Thank you! :-)


Maryann Zucker Completely disagree. Loved the book


Julie Davis Maryann wrote: "Completely disagree. Loved the book"

Many did! :-)


message 5: by Fonch (new)

Fonch This book must be absolutely horrendous if you rate with One star.


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