Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Summary and Reviews of Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Salt Houses

by Hala Alyan
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (4):
  • First Published:
  • May 2, 2017, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2018, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

From a dazzling new literary voice, a debut novel about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between displacement and home.

On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the girl's future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.

Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia's brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can't escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia's children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities.

Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses is a remarkable debut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflict we might think we understand - one that asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can't go home again. 

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Readers travel through each section of the narrative – from country to country – with a different family member. The story jumps forward in time, often skipping years, to coincide with significant events, both historical and familial, which keeps the storytelling compelling and intriguing. In this way, writer Hana Alyan creates a unique perspective of the effect of political conflict on families. Rather than bringing readers to the brutality of war, we bear witness to the separation of a family from its roots, placing us inside the heart of one particular family...continued

Full Review (795 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by Claire McAlpine).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Makloubeh

MakloubehWar and political divisions are not the only reasons for people living in exile from their families, but they are often why people must leave in haste and abandon everything behind them. Sometimes homes are destroyed by war or, as with Alia's parents in Hala Alyan's novel Salt Houses, they are occupied following invasion. What can these people take with them even as they are forced to leave all tangible things behind? One thing is the memory of their favorite dishes and, wherever they make their home, they do what they can to reconstruct the classic dishes of their culture, and of their family tradition. Grandmothers and mothers hand down recipes to their daughters, who participate in the rituals and preparations of these ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Salt Houses, try these:

  • The Moon That Turns You Back jacket

    The Moon That Turns You Back

    by Hala Alyan

    Published 2024

    About this book

    More by this author

    From the author of The Arsonists' City and The Twenty-Ninth Year, a new collection of poetry that traces the fragmentation of memory, archive, and family–past, present, future–in the face of displacement and war.

  • Peach Blossom Spring jacket

    Peach Blossom Spring

    by Melissa Fu

    Published 2023

    About this book

    A "beautifully rendered" novel about war, migration, and the power of telling our stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home (Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones).

We have 9 read-alikes for Salt Houses, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Hala Alyan
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Model Home
    Model Home
    by Rivers Solomon
    Rivers Solomon's novel Model Home opens with a chilling and mesmerizing line: "Maybe my mother is ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Story Collector
by Evie Woods
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!
Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Who Said...

A library is thought in cold storage

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now