Book review: As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

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I’ll admit, I’m a rather emotional person. But if a book is so impactful in its storytelling that I repeatedly have to put it down just to regain my composure, then that is quite remarkable-even for my standards.

In “As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow”, we follow Salama, a pharmacist in training forced by the horrors of the Syrian civil war to become a doctor specialising in everything.

Much of the plot takes place at the hospital in Homs that Salama works at. The scenes that unfold there are among some of the hardest to get through and the author certainly does not sugarcoat the brutality of war. This book was published in 2022, but after witnessing a livestreamed genocide for almost a year and a half, it is impossible to read these parts and not think of Palestine.

In fact, some parts of this book seem eerily prophetic. Others (“I wish we were being broadcast live on every channel and smartphone in the world so everyone could see what they’re allowing to happen to children”) just leave you feeling utterly crestfallen.

But amidst all of this violence, we also get a love story. Salama runs into Kenan by chance and the relationship that gradually develops between them easily matches the intensity of the war around them. If you are, like me, a fan of “big” feelings and vast moments of yearning, this story will reward you generously for all the pain it asks you to take on.

It would be remiss not to mention that Salama suffers from PTSD hallucinations that regularly manifest in the form of a person. I found that these scenes elevated the plot and Salama’s grappling with what is real and what is not certainly added to the tension.

There are twists in this book, one of which quite literally made my jaw drop. Speaking about plot development, I also had no idea where this story was going, right until the very end, which in my view is always to the credit of the author. “As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow” is a book that I enjoyed from the first to the final word. I would urge everyone to give this one a read, although you should be prepared to have your emotional composure broken multiple times in almost every chapter.