As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
by Zoulfa Katouh
read by Rasha Zamamiri
Hachette Audio, 2022. 12 hours, 16 minutes.
Review written August 13, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Wow. This is a book about ordinary people who become extraordinary during wartime.
Salama is 18 years old and working in a hospital in Homs, Syria, in 2011. She got to attend two years of pharmacy school before people had enough and rose up against Assad. Her father and brother were taken to prison to be tortured after a protest, and her mother died when a bomb struck their home. Now Salama volunteers every day at the hospital and has learned to do surgery such as removing bullets and sewing up wounds.
Salama’s been through trauma, and she knows it. She knows that the man she sees named Hawf is someone created in her brain that no one else can see. He is relentlessly trying to get her to leave Syria before her 8-months-pregnant sister-in-law Layla gives birth. She’s torn because she’s needed at the hospital. And what about the cost? And will they even survive the journey?
In the middle of all these hard things, she meets a boy a little older than herself, who brings in his little sister with an injury. It turns out the boy was the same one her mother was arranging for her to meet just before the revolution started and their lives blew apart. He, too, feels he is doing important work in Syria – posting YouTube videos of the protests and the response. As their attraction for each other grows, they both need to decide at what point the risk is just too great and when staying alive is simply the most important goal.
The characters speak eloquently of their love for Syria. There is plenty of horrific violence in this book, including a chemical attack on children. Salama is badly traumatized, and she knows she’s traumatized – but she still wants to help people.
The author tells us at the end that she was trying to show ordinary people in wartime, trying to show the beauty of Syria – that was crushed by the regime in power. And that people are still people.
The romance in this book is wonderful. I appreciate that when the characters are Muslim, the romance isn’t focused on physically getting together – and to me, it makes the attraction all the stronger. The author said she was trying to copy Jane Austen’s romances, and she did a wonderful job. We can watch these two fall in love on the page – even while horrific things are happening around them and they each fear for the lives of those they love.
It does leave me wondering: When will humans stop doing this to one another? Until that day comes, this book is an amazing look at some young people who manage to find love and beauty even in the middle of war.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/as_long_as_the_lemon_trees_grow.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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