Official Review: Syrian black tears by Dr. Saida Seddik

[jamesabr]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Syrian black tears" by Dr. Saida Seddik.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Syrian Black Tears is a fictional novella written by Dr. Saida A. M. Seddik. Each chapter is a diary entry from Sophie, her husband Tom, and one mystery person concerning their perceptions of the current affairs in Syria and other middle eastern countries while they live in the United States.
 
I wish I could recommend this book because the author seems to have put her heart into it, but there were so many editing and narrating mistakes. There were parts in which I was confused as to who the narrator was in each chapter, there are unintentionally choppy and somewhat broken English sentences that were hard to understand, and there was no plot or flow to the story whatsoever.
 
When I read the first chapter, I presumed that the grammatical and spelling errors were done purposefully to draw the reader into the life of a refugee who has started to grasp the written English language. However, upon researching Dr. Seddik's blog and samples of her other works, I found that all of her writing contains a multitude of grammatical errors and typos that are similar to the ones in this book. An example I found in Syrian Black Tears:
 

"Her face turned to all colors, her eyes couldn't open anymore; sleepy so impatient to get to the apartment her husband had rented."

 
Many of the sentences were formatted like this one, leading me to believe that the book was not professionally edited by anyone. The numerous grammar mistakes took me out of the reading many times, preventing me from enjoying the book. When I chose this book after reading Dr. Seddik's biography, I assumed that her status as a professional within the Western Art and Islamic Philosophy studies would produce a work that would broaden my horizon concerning Middle Eastern and Islamic issues. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
 
Despite these errors, I still wanted to give the book the benefit of the doubt, but as I said before, there was no flow of plot or consistency in the story. I figured this out before reaching the final chapter, and upon re-reading the story, I can only say that the story is a collection of news articles that are parroted out of the mouths of the two main characters and some characters who were dropped into the story at the very end.
 
I give this book a rating of 1 out of 4 stars. Reading the broken sentences twice was tedious, so I do not recommend it to those who are sticklers about English grammar. I also do not recommend it to those who are attempting to learn English, because this short book is a bad example of grammar and spelling.

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Syrian black tears
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Like jamesabr's review? Post a comment saying so!

[kandscreeley]

Wow. It sounds like this one needed more work. It's too bad especially when the author puts so much into it.

[Henry Kaisemutala]

A bit discouraging, yet the story was to be a nice one. Let's hope the author will realize his mistakes in the next writing and correct them.

[kimmyschemy06]

That was a very honest review. Let's hope the author does a better job in her next book. Nice review.