TLC Book Tours: When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi

Title: When the Moon is Low
Author: Nadia Hashimi 
Format: Paperback
Publisher: William Morrow
Publish Date: July 21, 2015
Source: TLC Book Tours

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister's family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.

Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe's capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite, and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives."

My Two Cents:

"When the Moon is Low" is the story of Fereiba and her family. They are living in Afghanistan right during the time of the Soviet invasion. Things are tumultuous and families are being torn apart. Fereiba wants to make sure that her family stays together and they have a chance at a better life. This book immerses the reader in a world where there is danger and unpredictability at every turn. This is a heart-wrenching story.

The story of Fereiba and Mahmoud's marriage is almost fairytale - like. At first, I was not sure about the author's decision to show so much of their early marriage but I think it really set up for me what kind of person Fereiba was and made her tick. It also helped me understand how things affect her, which is very important for the bulk of the action in this book. Fereiba was so interesting to me - she is strong in a world where it is not always permissive for a woman to be so strong. I really enjoyed getting to know her and her family through this book.

This book was such a rollercoaster ride for me. You're hoping so hard for things to turn out okay throughout the book and I felt very emotionally invested. I also liked getting to see places that I was not familiar with. The detail that the author added to the book really engaged me. This is the second book that I have read by Hashimi and I am anxious to read more in the future!