3 out of 4 stars
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My Trip to Adele by A.I. Alyaseer and R.I. Alyaseer is a contemporary fiction written in the perspectives of three Adele fans. The story is a tale of love, faith, and strength as each person struggles to find their Individual freedoms.
Each point of view plans a trip to the same Adele concert in Verona, Italy while reflecting upon an eight-year period. The book opens with Elias, a Moroccan born Roman, who travels back to Morocco in an attempt to break a black magic curse. Eight years earlier, he fell in love with a thirteen-year-old Moroccan prostitute. Upon finding out her young age, he left her with a promise to meet someday at an Adele concert which ends up being the one in Italy. The novel then moves into a chapter in Nadia's life. Nadia, from Amman, Jordan, plans to take her son to see his idol Adele in Italy as a birthday present. After being divorced for eight years, Nadia faces the daily challenge of co-raising her son with her abusive ex-husband in a country where women are lesser than men. Finally, Yaser has found himself suffocating in his eight-year marriage that has him questioning his own faith. In an attempt to rekindle the flame in their marriage, Yaser invites his wife to the Adele concert in Verona.
The best part of the novel was the way the author romanticized different aspects of three separate lives. The author creates beauty with imperfections. The author triggers powerful emotions such as nostalgia with Elias, guilt with Yaser, and pride with Nadia to provoke deep thought from the reader. The perspective of Elias was the most powerful and believable. The way El-Fnaa square was described made me feel as though I knew it as well as he did. My heart truly ached for Elias. Moreover, the Alyaseer duo had a talent for immersing the reader into diverse cultures. It allowed for an empathetic window into how others live.
Personally, I think cycling through the three perspectives was not ideal. Often, I found myself forgetting what was going on from that point of view prior to the chapter. Each character was likable, but it was not a big enough glimpse into their lives to really fall in love with the characters. Also, the writing style seemed as if it was written by a non-native English speaker with the author's word choice and it was a bit distracting from the author's message. For example, "...and it had taught me that possessing something of value items wasn't always easy (Ch 3)." A native English speaker would have just said "something of value" rather than adding "items." This happened several times throughout the book causing me to fall out of the moment.
I give My Trip to Adele a 3 out of 4 stars. The novel had many positive aspects as I highlighted above, but overall the writing style was not my cup of tea. I urge others to give this novel a try for its uniqueness and its provocation of deep thought.
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My trip to Adele
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