I chose to read this because the title immediately resonated with me: Home is definitely not a country for me, and I’m sure it isn’t for many people. Home is something that I continuously search for, and find or have found in multiple places at different times in my life. It’s a tough feeling to explain to someone who was born and raised in the same place as their parents were. It’s a constant feeling of sometimes belonging in parts, and most of the time not, finding happiness in certain things, and never understanding others, and so on.

Safia Elhillo’s Home is Not a Country is a beautiful story in verse which I read in nearly one sitting, holding my heart in my hand. Nima feels divided between the life she lives and the life she could have had elsewhere, where her mother and deceased father grew up and fell in love. She doesn’t feel like she belongs and searches for answers in old photos, movies, songs, and stories, looking for signs of who she is and where she comes from. The only person who seems to understand her is her best friend Haitham, but their relationship is changing and they are drifting apart. Suddenly she notices the appearance of another presence, a girl like her who has the same name her parents were going to name her, but didn’t, Yasmeen.

Home is Not a Country is gorgeous poetry, magical realism, strong themes, a beautiful main character who I fell in love with, and is all in all a must read! 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.