3 out of 4 stars
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People say that the power of music is its ability to unite people across age, sex, race, and orientation. Anybody can be touched by a song regardless of where they are in life or where in the world they are. R. I. and A. I. Alyaseer's co-written novel My Trip to Adele embodies this feeling. The story follows three people, Elias, Yaser, and Nadia, all going through their own problems who find solace and strength in the music of English singer-songwriter Adele, only to find that what we think we want out of life is not always what we need.
Elias is a young man living in Rome who carries the memory of a girl he left in El-Fnaa Square in Marrakesh, Morocco. Yaser is an unhappily married man living in Las Vegas struggling to reignite the spark that made he and his wife, Mariam, fall in love. Nadia is a single mom living in Amman, Jordan trying to give her only son a good life while his father and the law fight to suppress her independence. They all set out to see Adele perform in Verona—Elias to find his lost love, Malika; Yaser to recreate the moment when he proposed to his wife; and Nadia, as a gift to her son. Yet in their attempts to see the singer, each are met with difficult realities they were trying to avoid.
In Elias's case, he realizes that the girl he once pined for has changed, and although she still loves him, she is not the same girl he loves in his memory. Yaser is inspired to reevaluate his suffocating marriage when Mariam forgives him for not believing in her God, the same God over whom they had bonded while they were dating. Nadia realizes that no matter how many rules her ex-husband and the law hold over her and no matter how they seek to restrict her freedom, she would gladly stop fighting it for the sake of her son if it promised her his love. Each travel to great lengths to achieve what they think they want—particularly Elias, who scours Morocco looking for his love. It is only when they can let go of an illusion of happiness that they were chasing, as well as an Adele concert, that they can restart and find new ways to be happy.
The problems each character face, as well as the resolutions they draw, help explain the dangers of art imitating life and vice versa, with the Adele concert being the focal point for all three. They all rely on the inspiration brought by Adele's music to make a change in their lives. Elias goes looking for Malika, Yaser saves his marriage, and Nadia tries to travel with her son. The magic of Adele leads these three to believe that life can be as perfect as the art (music) she creates. But just as performers sound differently live than on the radio, their dreams are more appealing in theory than in action, and none of their plans pan out. Yaser and Mariam both reject the Adele concert an hour before their flight to Verona. Nadia is prohibited from traveling with her son, and despite wanting to travel alone to prove her independence, gives up her tickets and runs off the plane back to her heartbroken son. Although Nadia and Yaser continue to listen to Adele on the radio, they could not face the reality of her concert; they may continue to hold onto illusion of the lives they want, but will never face them. Adele's art (music) may imitate the moments they are going through throughout the book, but their lives will never be able to imitate her art.
Elias is the only one to make it to the Adele concert, where he meets up with Malika after eight years of separation. It is only when the curtain is thrown back and Elias is engulfed in the live performance that he can no longer accept the reality of his life: Malika has changed, and she tells him directly when he says that he is looking for the old her, "Then you are still on the Atlas Mountains." Elias is not ready to accept his new reality, and before the image of Malika can be spoiled any further, he leaves the concert without her. He is the only one of the three protagonists to try to make life imitate art, and fails. He would have been better off with the memory of Malika, just as Yaser is better off with a marriage mended on his own terms, and Nadia is better off with a son who loves her over independence from a sexist regime.
The message of the Alyaseer authors is clear: You cannot force life to happen. An artist may shape their art, and Adele may shape her music and performances, but an individual cannot shape the way their lives turn out. None of them needed to force themselves into an Adele concert to experience Adele—a "trip to Adele" did not need to mean traveling to another country to see her live; it could have meant simply taking a "staycation" and listening to her on the radio and they would have been happy. Elias is the only one to succeed in shaping his life by attending the concert, and it hurts him in the end. Yaser and Nadia spontaneously decide not to shape their lives, and their problems solve themselves.
I rank My Trip to Adele 3 out of 4 stars. The message of this book is one I agree with fervently and I believe is well executed here. Forcing a fate upon yourself is not the best way to secure happiness in your life; the best things will happen in time. Elias, Yaser, and Nadia needed to experience the failure of the concert in order to move on with their lives and stop dwelling on past problems. The novel also dabbles with the battle between sin and virtue. Is it better to live a monotonous, virtuous life as Mariam does, or live a happy, sinful life as Yaser does? Is it sinful to rebel against tradition and stand up for yourself, as Nadia does, and virtuous to roll over and let your life be controlled by another, as the men in her life expect her to do? To each their own, the book says, as long as it is the right path for you. What matters most is living a content life that you yourself have decided upon. The book has occasional spelling and grammar errors. In addition, it is difficult to tell when flashbacks begin and end, and the Adele references occasionally feel shoehorned into the book, as though the same scene could happen without her. But overall, it is a well written book. While this is no mystery novel, the authors certainly lay the details out in a way that makes putting the pieces together fun, engaging, and entertaining. My Trip to Adele is definitely worth the read.
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My Trip To Adele
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