Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Where Jasmine Blooms: A Novel
    Where Jasmine Blooms: A Novel
    Where Jasmine Blooms: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    Where Jasmine Blooms: A Novel

    Written by Holly S. Warah

    Narrated by Johara Al-Rasheed

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    To the Mansours, an Arab American family living in Seattle, love knows no borders. But despite our best efforts, sometimes love—and family—are foreign to us . . . American-born Margaret Mansour wants nothing more than to rekindle the struggling twenty-year marriage to her Palestinian husband, Ahmed—but not if it means uprooting their home and children in America and moving halfway across the world. Young and ambitious Alison Mansour has a degree in Near East Studies, but her American education and Syrian background are of no use when her new marriage begins to crumble under the weight of cultural and religious differences. The communication between Alison and her husband is already shaky; how will they cope with the arrival of their first child? Zainab Mansour, the matriarch of her family, never expected to live in America, but after the death of her husband she finds herself lost in a faithless country and lonely within the walls of her eldest son’s home. She wants what’s best for her children but struggles to find her place in a new landscape. Emerging from the interwoven perspectives of these three women comes a story of love and longing, culture and compromise, home and homeland. Exploring the complex political backdrop of the Middle East from a personal perspective, Where Jasmine Blooms travels from the suburbs of Seattle to the villas of Jordan and the refugee camps of the West Bank, on an emotional journey exploring what it means to be a family.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEverand Productions
    Release dateAug 31, 2021
    ISBN9781094424798
    Author

    Holly S. Warah

    Holly S. Warah has traveled widely throughout the Arab world. She has lived in the region for seventeen years and been married into an Arab family for twenty-eight years. Her short fiction has won a national award, first place in The Writer magazine’s 2011 Short Story Contest, as well as several regional awards, including first place in the 2010 Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) Literary Contest and first place in the 2011 Southwest Writers Writing Contest. Holly has a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language and has taught for more than ten years in Seattle and Dubai, where she now lives.

    Related to Where Jasmine Blooms

    Related audiobooks

    Contemporary Women's For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for Where Jasmine Blooms

    4/5

    183 ratings11 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a captivating and insightful exploration of cross-cultural marriages and the challenges faced by Arab immigrants in America. The book provides a deep understanding of Muslim life and offers valuable insights into the complexities of family dynamics and cultural clashes. While some readers found the characters lacking in backbone and struggled with the narration, overall, the story is engaging and thought-provoking. It beautifully portrays character growth and the importance of embracing different cultures. An excellent read for those interested in exploring unfamiliar cultures and the impact of travel on personal growth.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A fascinating insight into life in a cross-cultural family and the joys, trials and tribulations which are shared and overcome or buried. Beautiful writing. Sensitive and touching. Well balanced.
    • 3/5
      Very very slow. Almost boring! Also very repetitive and a bit too descriptive. I finished it, but it was a struggle.
    • 5/5
      Loved it. Gives a lot of insight into the lives of Second generation Arab immigrants.
    • 5/5
      Loved it a lot. The narrarator was fantastic! I learned so much about a different culture
    • 4/5
      An interesting look into a culture I am unfamiliar with but learned to appreciate.
    • 5/5
      A story of cross-cultural marriage. A woman marries a man who believes and practices a religion unlike her own, is introduced to a new set of cultural norms, and has to come to grips with the fact that insisting to remain as she is will lead to heartache and loneliness
    • 5/5
      4.5
      I really enjoyed listening to this. Well-told story, heartfelt, felt like real-life story and interesting story line
      It gave me a lot of insight into marriages between Arabs and Americans, islamic religion and the arabic language
      Also about family, marriage in general
      I enjoyed this ??(p.s i am not islam/muslim/arab/american)
      If you liked “A woman is no man” i think you would like this as well?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The narrator voice is clear and strong but flat. All sounded the same and it was hard to discern whose thoughts were expressed at the beginning.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It took a little way in to get into it but the slice of normal life infused with interesting characters, cultural clashes laced with love…or not, and the insight of how travel changes and informs thoughts and feelings kept me engaged and wanting more. This picture of a large family was so satisfyingly tied together at the end with character growth and change and outcomes of each of the main characters that felt just right. ❤️

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A great introduction to Muslim life from the point of view of the mother and her two American daughters in law. I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 2/5
      It took me a while to get through this book. Maybe it is a culture thing, idk, but I found myself getting angry at the women for their lack of backbone, the mother for being so intrusive in her children’s relationship and the men for forcing their way of life onto the wives after being wed. My solution to 90% of the whining by the characters is if you hate America so bad then LEAVE. Nobody is making them stay, especially as they are so miserable in “this faithless country”. It is eye opening into a different culture/part of the world and makes me appreciate being American even more!

      1 person found this helpful