The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story Paperback – April 6, 2010

I finished reading this book at one go. I fell in love with Kamila, a free-spirited woman. Her trials and tribulations became mine. I laughed with her and I sneaked to the movies with her. She was so full of life and passion that I was overwhelmed and got swept away. Even though it was in the 30s and in a Muslim country, it was heartbreaking to find a 14 year old kid being married off and being raped by her 'husband'. Reminded me so much of my grandmother who was all but 14 when she had her first child. I was told that she did not even know how to carry the infant around. What was wrong with people of those times?Hanan's style of writing is amazing. She paints the world with her words and you become one with the story. I wish I met Kamila when she was alive, she would have been my best friend.

This account of a woman's life growing up, falling in love in a society so different from our own was fascinating. It made me appreciate being able to live in a country where I could become literate, choose my own mate, and occupation. I would highly recommend this for young women who have grown complacent in their lifestyle.

Probably one of the best books I've ever read. The plot involves different dimensions in writing including cultural background. The characters live in a society where certain behaviors are punishable by stoning in an age where divorce was not a word you said in public. One can surmise that the main character is living a life of chaos by fighting everything and everybody including herself. It is that human struggle in that cultural background and at that time in history that make this book a very good read. Some of the behaviors presented almost push this person to the edge of madness and sinful escapades. The question is always: did she have a choice? The answwer depends on the reader's appreciation of the ties that bind us.

Confusing story. It jumped around a lot and I never felt like they got anywhere.

I have assigned this novel multiple times in college courses, and it is often my students' favorite book of the semester. Kamila's story beautifully charts the history of Lebanon (though it's not a historical novel), explores the urban rural divide and the status of poor Shi'i Muslims who traveled from southern Lebanon to Beirut. The narrative raises the question: what makes a good/bad mother? And what is forgiveness? Kamila is a wonderful storyteller with a delightful sense of humor. Highly recommend!

It seems that it doesn't matter which culture we look at, there are always difficult relationships between mothers and their daughters. Those relationships don't get a whole lot easier as time goes on, either. For years, Kamil had pestered her author daughter to write down her own mother's story. Hanan had always resisted as a kind of small punishment to her mother, who had abandoned her at the age of six. Finally, after enduring Kamil's pleadings for years, Hanan agreed to write.And what a story it is! It turns out that Kamil was abandoned by a parent as well, this time a father, and much of her early life was spent scraping for necessities. Her mother's extreme poverty led her to beg an older married daughter for a place to live for herself, Kamil, and a brother, which was only grudgingly granted by Kamil's brother in law. When his wife (Kamil's sister) dies unexpectedly at just about the same moment that Kamil begins to show signs of youthful beauty, her troubles really begin. At age 13, she is tricked into marrying her widowed brother in law (her sister's husband!), a man she loathes. She then makes the mistake of falling in love with Muhammed, a man who is amazingly persistent in light of Kamil's married state. Many years of failed plans and tragic circumstances ensue, with Kamil being granted her freedom (through a shocking divorce) ten years later. The one catch -- Kamil must leave her two daughters behind, with young Hanan only six years old. But Kamil seems totally unable to put her children's needs before her own desires, and she leaves her children without a backward glance. She and Muhammed have five more children when they are finally together.And there my sympathy for Kamil ended. Well, a little before that - I lost all sympathy for her when she abandoned her daughters. I did a little self-arguing: she had been abandoned herself and had no strong parental model, Kamil was a child when she married and not a whole lot more than that when she divorced, etc. But the truth of the matter is that Kamil behaved more selfishly than the greediest four year old until much later in her life. And then it was too late. (Or was it?)I found the Kamil story spellbinding, even though I had little sympathy for the character herself. Like others here, I found the Hanan passages to be distracting and unnecessary, and wondered about her reasons for including them. I could only conclude that Hanan is showing a little bit of the selfishness toward her mother to pay her back for her mother's selfishness toward Hanan. Otherwise, there is no reason for adding these dry, distracting passages to an otherwise screaming-fast and engaging autobiography.I highly recommend this book, if only to remind yourself that mother-daughter problems are universal. Whether in 1930's Beiruit or 2009 USA, there will be two ways of looking at the same picture, and that few mothers and daughters will see things the same way.

I could barely put the book down and I am pretty hard to please when it comes to books - I don't just read the latest "top seller". It was extremely well written with an interesting plot and to top it off, it is a true story. I liked the references to the government and Lebanese culture, as well, which was educational. I want to now read other books by Hanan, even though she primarily writes novels. I would highly recommend this book and look forward to reading some of her other books - I hope they can live up to this one.