Ronit & Jamil by Pamela L. Laskin

A classic tale of young lovers rebooted in a different region, chock full of text messages and hip-hop innuendos.

Pamela L. Laskin's created an au courant verse novel of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by transporting two teenage lovers to a new setting, Gaza. Ronit is a Jewish Israeli who meets Ronit, a Muslim Palestinian, by way of their fathers, one a pharmacist, the other a doctor. They immediately fall in love in spite of their father's warnings that they refrain from looking upon one another. Their interactions flow in a first person, poetic format. Their feelings for one another sent via text messages and voiced during secret meetings is easy to follow and highly relatable. The abrupt changes in emotions, showcase the immaturity of the star-crossed lovers. What makes this story so mocking is the fact that both of their fathers often work together to service and heal the sick, but they cannot put their cultural bigotry aside and accept that their children have fallen madly in love. Laskin's words help educate readers on the political, cultural, and religious stakes in a war-torn region. A place where love may not always get you through. 

This work is both romantic and educational, with a modern day twist on teenage fever. 

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini's novel, "And the Mountains Echoed," is one of the most emotionally gripping stories that he's written. The complexity and rhythm of the novel is striking. Although, Hosseini doesn't focus on any one character, he is able to artfully take the foundation of this story and develop it into branches, then leaves, that all receive their nourishment from the same place. The root of the story.

The book is built around the story of ten-year-old Abdullah and his three-year-old sister Pari and their father's decision, through coercion from his brother-in-law, to sell Pari to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul. This event gives the story it's roots, it's bloodline. Abdullah stays behind in an impoverished village in Afghanistan while Pari is whisked away to begin a life of privilege. Pari is eventually taken by her adoptive mother, a sensual poet, to live in Paris. Hosseini shows us how this act sends fractures through a family and how these fractures lead to strikingly different paths for the family.

This book speaks to status and power. Hosseini exposes his readers to the privileges that the wealthy have over the poor. They have the freedom to decide if they will lend a hand and how they will lend it, and it all comes down to one thing. Money. The poor are often powerless in their hunger and make gut wrenching sacrifices to make it through each precarious day. The beauty in this novel is the ties that bind Abdullah and Pari. No matter how far apart and markedly different their lives were, they were still bound by blood and that bloodline, after many years apart, led them back together again.

Abdullah and Pari's story reminds me that although we are individuals we share a common bond that may be invisible to us, but it is there in the universe, and keeps us interconnected.