3 out of 4 stars
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My Trip To Adele is written by duo writer R.I. Alyaseer and A.I. Alyaseer. They happen to be siblings and are both working to be successful writers. It is their first English as well as self-published novel. The book comes under the genre of fiction.
As the title of the book goes A Trip To Adele, it is a journey of three lives that are connected with life struggle and songs of Adele. The book has 25 chapters and in the mid of the novel I realize that each chapter is titled by the title of her song and at the end of every chapter the lines of the songs blend in with the story perfectly as though it was discussed beforehand.
The first character that was introduced to us is Elias from Rome, second is Yaser from Las Vegas and the last and my personal favorite is Naida from Amman.
Elias appears to be hopelessly in love with Malika for eight long years even though they have met only once in Morocco, Malika as a prostitute and Elias as the customer. They have a huge age gap and it is one of the reasons that separate them. Malika felt safe and secured with Elias whereas Elias was filled with guilt that he was in love with a child.
Their story is filled with contrast and conflict between old superstitions belief and modern life.
On the other hand there is Yaser and Mariam’s eight years old marriage almost at the verge of ending. There was no love, just living with each other for the sake of marriage and kids. Yaser was tired of Mariam’s monotonous habit and Mariam was frustrated by Yaser’s uncaring and damn attitude. Mariam did not change a thing after marriage and he could no longer take it. He started rejecting her belief and her God. Although their relationship is crumbling they show as a ‘happy family’ in their picture, and post it in social media, now that it’s not as perfect as the picture they try to hide it from the world. They did not let anyone know that they were seeing a councilor in order to save their marriage. The question of religion, belief, faith, idea of perfect marriage and fake life of social media is raised in their story. They were both chained by their marriage, children, religion and perfect pictures.
Last but not the least, as I have mentioned, my favorite of all, Naida. She is a divorcee, after much struggle and physical abuse from her ex-husband she i s finally free from his chain. They have a son name Waleed and she loves him unconditionally. She fought through all the laws and rules laid down by her tradition and were determined to set herself free from all the bondage. To get her son’s custody she fought for eight years. She is portrayed as a strong and independent woman, the kind who refuses to let anything control her. She represents the struggle of women in this novel, unluckily some women fails to find the courage like her and suffers their whole life. Her character is capable to raise many question on equality, strength of a woman and injustice.
Now you may wonder how they are related since they have completely different kind of life and struggle but they are interconnected with their eight years of struggle in quest of their answers. Their love for Adele can be counted as a connection between them. Even though they are fighting different battles all they want is to be free from their own bondage.
I rate this novel 3 out of 4 stars because overall it is a good book with valuable moral and the story is quite realistic. Special recommendation for people who listen and relate to Adele’s music. I rate 3 instead of 4 because even though it is undoubtablely a good read with easy to read English I personally found it hard to keep up with the change of character and settings. I had to read it again to know what I’m reading. But apart from that it is a ‘must’ read short novel and it is professionally edited with no grammatical error or spelling mistake.
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My Trip To Adele
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