First book finished in July!
Also my first contemporary book ever since… ever since forever? You know my preferences are fantasy, and that I rarely pick contemporaries… But I couldn’t get past this one because it features one of my favorite Western artists that is Adele.
My most favorite song from Adele will always be Someone Like You, because it’s too close to me and what happened in my life 5 years ago, and this song always triggers the memories of my past whenever I hear it, so, actually despite being the most favorite song, I try to listen to it as less as possible because I’ve overcome my initial pain and I wouldn’t like to have myself drown in that depression ever again.
My Trip to Adele
by R.I. Alyaseer & A.I. Alyaseer
Rating: 
Goodreads | Amazon
Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: September 12th, 2016
Format: eBook (borrowed
with Amazon Kindle Unlimited)
Synopsis: An Adele concert held in Verona becomes the focus for an unhappy married couple, a divorced mother and a devoted lover from three different countries and cultures.
This is the story of three flawed but likeable people. First up is Elias, a Moroccan man living in Rome. He discovers that a black magic spell was cast upon him but starts to doubt whether it was the real cause of the break-up between him and his long-lost love Malika. He decides to search for her in the shadows of Marrakesh after eight years of separation.
Nadia, a single mother from Jordan, is battling her ex-husband in the courts and doing all she can to secure freedom for herself and her only son. Her dream is to take her son to see his idol, Adele, live.
Finally, Yaser, a married man living in Las Vegas, realizes that his marriage is crawling all over him like a slow, painful death, so he starts to rebel against his wife. While faith initially brought them together, it is now causing them to drift apart.
These three characters are on a journey to break free of everything that has haunted them, learning harsh truths about fate, religion, courage, desire and guilt along the way.
Yes, I’m actually skipping both “About the author” and “About the book” sections.
Well, what can I say.
Clearly I picked up this book because of Adele, and I stayed with the book for Adele, and I would be lying if I say I wasn’t impressed by the stories in the book.
My Trip To Adele is a compilation of three different stories that has one common thing – they must end at Adele’s concert in Verona. There is a married couple struggling with the feeling of dullness in their family life, there is a divorced woman putting endless efforts to provide her son the best things possible, and there is a man looking for his lost love.
You know that I usually don’t pick up contemporaries, although I have some titles I wanted to check out personally for some reasons (lowkey noise marketing all over bookstagram, but does it even matter?). I don’t pick them up because I’m already fed up with my real life, and books are my escape from the world, so the least place I liked to end up was anything contemporary.
What was portrayed in My Trip To Adele proved me again why I must stay confident with my life choices regarding family, marriage and love. Out of these three stories, I felt most emotions in those family-related: Nadia and her struggles with post-divorce life where some cultural traditions are clearly not siding with her when she wants to protect herself and her son; and Yaser who’s struggling with his wife, unable to find a solution to their marriage crisis, despite having everything that could be dreamed of.
I’m clearly not saying that Elias story wasn’t good – it just didn’t get to me as much as the other two did. At some moment, his story for me seemed way too unreal to be true. Also, I have to mention that there is a lot of diversity going on, and the cultural differences can be difficult to understand from some points of view. I’ll be honest, I’m struggling with understanding some Middle East cultures, partially related to religion (I don’t want to sound rude, but I’m afraid of Islam, that doesn’t mean that I hate or despise it, I just can’t feel myself easy when I’m near Islam-related objects [you should know how stressful was my trip to Malaysia three years ago]).
Anyways, what I wanted to say is the books was beautifully written (although I thought there were too many metaphors used in narration that sometime you feel carried away from the main story line), the relations to Adele’s songs were pretty accurate, and the ending was just right for me. But I will say honestly: I felt a bit jealous when Someone like you was connected to the story in a way authors wrote it. This song specifically is very intimate for me, and I relate this song to my own personal experience. I was thinking of probably sharing with you a bits of it, but maybe next time? It’s not that I shouldn’t be sharing very personal things with the world (I already overcame it a while ago and I can talk pretty freely on it), it’s just I don’t know how should I put it into words anymore.
I seriously never felt so flustered and… nervous? – writing this review. I didn’t know what should I express over it. Doesn’t mean that the review above was a total lie, it’s just it was really hard for me to form my feelings into words.
Anyways, is there anyone who read it as well?
Share your opinions if you did!~
Liliana N Bookish Blog 