Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Yara Zgheib for the ARC of No Land to Light On in return for my honest opinion.

I thought this was such an interesting and moving look at the immigration story that is currently in the headlines daily. Beautifully written, it is emotional on so many levels. Regardless of your political leanings, refugee stories presented into personal ones always make you really think. After reading this book, I am looking forward to reading the author's book The Girls at 17 Swann Street.

When I received this ARC from atria books, I was very surprised and excited. While this is not my typical read, the synopsis sounded interesting and I found myself picking it up one night, then unable to put it down!

It is a story about a young Syrian couple who are living their American dream in Boston and expecting their first child. Hadi gets news of his father’s passing and flys to Jordan for the funeral, when he returns to Boston after, he is held up in customs as a new order is in place preventing any Syrian refugees from entering the US. He is sent back to Jordan, as Sama, his wife, goes into premature labor at the airport waiting for him.

The story continues from there going back and forth from Hadi and Sama to what they are currently going through and then flashbacks to their previous lives in Syria and how they came to meet in Boston. It was very eye opening for me, to see what Hadi went through to get into the US, where his wife and unborn child are. Where he has a residence and a Visa and passport to rightfully be there. It is heartbreaking to realize that this is a reality for so many trying to escape a war in Syria to provide a safe life for their family. It is a story of love and what one will go through for the people they truly care about. I highly recommend this read. With quick chapters, it is such a fast read that totally captivates.

No Land to Light On is one of the saddest books I have read in a while. Hadi and Sama are a Syrian couple who met in Boston. Sama is pregnant with her first child when Hadi flies to Jordan for a funeral for his father. While he is gone, Trumps Muslim Ban goes into effect and Hadi cannot get back into the country even though he lives here. The story seemed very real and was full of heartbreak and showed just how tough it has been for families who were affected by the Ban. The only reason I am not giving it 5 stars was because of the pacing of the book and the layout. I did enjoy the fact that we have two different timelines, past and present. However, sometimes it seemed a bit disjointed when switching from past to present. The ending was rushed to me and I wish it was 50 pages longer to get more of the ending of the story. Overall, good book dealing with family and heartache and love.

Married and expecting their first child, Syrian immigrants Hadi Deeb and Sama Zayat are forging a new life for themselves in Boston, Massachusetts. While Sama left Syria 7 years ago on scholarship to Harvard, Hadi , a political refugee, had fled from war torn Syria under threat to his life in the midst of great political upheaval which had already led to his imprisonment once . Hadi’s father’s sudden demise has him travel back home for the funeral but unfortunately on return he is denied re-entry and turned back from his port of entry by Homeland Security who are acting in accordance with orders pertaining to the Presidential Executive Order 13769 (commonly referred to as the Muslim Travel Ban) dated January 27, 2017 which suspended the entry of travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The order explicitly banned Syrian refugees indefinitely from entering the United States until further notice. His is made to sign papers revoking his valid visa /refugee status and is deported to Amman.
Sama, while waiting for her husband at the airport falls ill and is rushed to hospital where she delivers their son Naseem prematurely. With their newborn baby fighting for its life in the NICU and her husband’s whereabouts unknown Sama tries to hold it together while Hadi struggles to find a way to lawfully re-enter the United States and be reunited with his family.
The narrative is shared between Sama and Hadi with snippets of what we assume is Sama’s research on the migratory pattern of birds. Though we are introduced to Hadi and Sama as a couple we get to know them as individuals. We get to know both these characters intimately- where they came from, how they met, their dreams and aspirations, their inner struggles and their hopes for a future in a new land. The author’s sensitive portrayal of how the circumstances of migration deeply influence the immigrant experience – how individuals perceive, assimilate, engage and adapt to their new country is exquisitely penned.
The setting, the characters and their plight are so realistic that at times it is hard to distinguish between fact and fiction. Poignant and heartbreaking, beautiful and sensitive, honest and brutal - No Land To Light On by Yara Zgheib will stay with me for a long time. This is a book that I will be recommending to anyone and everyone within reach.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for gifting me a digital ARC of this amazing book by Yara Zgheib, author of the wonderful book, The Girls at 17 Swann Street (must read!) - 5 stars for a beautifully written look into one couple's story of immigration.

Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple who met when both came to the US to escape the war in their country and to have hope for a better future. Sama received a scholarship to Harvard; Hadi was sponsored by a lawyer and his family as a refugee. They get married and are anxiously awaiting the birth of their son when Hadi receives news that his father has died as his parents awaited a visa appointment at the embassy. On his return to Boston, with Sama waiting for him at the airport, he is stopped from reentering the US due to a new executive order.

I thought this was such an emotional look at the immigration/refugee story that is always in the headlines. Beautifully written, it is heartbreaking on so many levels. No matter what your political leanings, global news stories broken down into personal ones never fail to make you really think. It's easy to gloss over and look at the big picture but there was so much sadness in this book that you can't help but extrapolate it into so many real peoples' lives. Despite all that, it is also a story of hope - don't miss it! After these two books, I'm so looking forward to more from this author!

Hadi is a Syrian refugee that comes to America and here he meets the love of his life, Sama, a fellow Syrian who came on scholarship to Harvard a few years prior. They are overjoyed when Sama finds out that she is pregnant. They are dreaming of everything their baby will have, mostly their freedom.

When Hadi's father passes away he goes home for his funeral but upon returning to Boston he runs into a serious issue. The President of the United States has signed an executive order banning anyone from Arab countries from entering. He rescinds his Visa and returns to Jordan heartbroken, confused, and angry.

From here we follow Hadi and Sama's journey. Will they be reunited?

This is a heartbreaking story. However, the purple, flowery prose did not work in its favor and I normally lap that kind of writing up. It made this book seem more like a chore to read which makes me so sad to say. I loved the authors last book The Girls at 17 Swann St and I was hoping to love this too but I just had such a hard time getting into it and would often find my thoughts drifting throughout. Also this is left open-ended with no real resolution but I do wish for Hadi, Sama, and baby to be happy wherever they ended up. 2.5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my complimentary copy.

Things I liked about this book: the powerful story of the Muslim travel ban under Trump, the devastation of families being wrongfully separated due to immigration policies, discussion about the American Dream (and the sacrifices made to achieve it


Things I didn’t like: integration of bird migration as a metaphor (I get it, it just took away from the plot rather than added to it). I didn’t become super invested in the story. The moving back and forth between past to present wasn’t done super well.

I really wanted to like this book- immigrant stories are such important ones to tell. Unfortunately this one just didn’t land for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for my ARC. Expected pub date: 1/4/22

Masterful from the first page. You rarely find a book that takes your breath away and Yara Zgheib has done just that. This is a story of love, family, and the undying connection we have to one another through turmoil and uncertainty. As a mother, my heart constantly ached throughout the story, and it felt like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet where instead of opposing households, politics stood in the way of their love. A must-read.

In No Light to Land on, we meet Sami and Hadi, two young Syrians who immigrated to Boston, at different times, to build a new life. It was love at first sight for the two of them, and Zgheib builds a narrative of moments this couple encounters as they navigate the US filled with hope. When Hadi's father suddenly dies a day before his visa appointment, Hadi flies to Jordan to bury him. However, upon his arrival back to the US, he gets detained due to the 2017 travel ban and loses his refugee status. This all happens to be the day Sama is labor prematurely, and she now has to face this milestone in his absence.

What I liked: I found the premise to be super interesting and different from other books I've read. My heart was aching for this couple and it all felt so real. I liked the dual POVs and how the story alternated between various timelines. The themes of immigration, loss and prematurity were also powerful.

Parts I did not care for: I did not love the sections between chapters that focused on migratory birds. The connection to the immigrant experience felt like a stretch as I was honestly skimming them. I found the dialogue kind of confusing to follow. There were fragments, a lot of prose and metaphors. I also felt like some of the storylines did not flow seamlessly and bounced from one idea to the next. The ending did not have a real conclusion, which I totally understand, though I wish we had some closure and got to read more into the characters feelings.

This is a touching story about a couple torn apart by the travel ban in 2017. While heartbreaking, it is also very disjointed storytelling (probably on purpose), but this also made it difficult to read and connect with the characters, not only because the perspective and time kept changing, but also from first person to third person, and back again.

The content of the novel is heavy, but due to the structure of the book it is also a quick read. The issues mentioned above kept me from deeply connecting with the characters, but it is still a worthwhile read!

Thanks to Atria Books and Netgalley!

Yara Zgheib's "No Land to Light On" is an emotionally resonant and timely tale about a young Syrian couple in love. Sama has lived in Boston for some time, after leaving Syria for big dreams. Hadi is a sponsored Syrian refugee who escapes the violence tearing apart the country. With Sama five months along in her pregnancy, Hadi is pulled back to the Middle East after his father unexpectedly dies. The timing of this is doubly tragic because it overlays with the travel ban that President Trump institutes. Hadi is stuck, his papers are revoked, while the emotions of this send Sama into an early labor.

Sama is fascinated by birds, and throughout the novel the migratory patterns of birds are highlighted which map onto the reasons that many humans also leave their countries. Birds often migrate in order to survive. Beginning to fly can also be a painful process, and they must flap their wings hard to set into flight. It's a moving analogy. Hadi and Sama are both deeply resonant characters. Their love for each other is strong, and also their convictions and hopes for their young son. This book is a deeply human tale that puts a face on the tragic consequences of immigration policies.

Thank you to Atria Books via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

3.5 Syrian Stars

This unique story features two young Syrians who find each other and fall in love in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They’ve both left Syria and are working to make a new life for themselves in the U.S.

Filled with lyrical writing, a timeline that hops around, and passages on the migratory patterns of birds, this one took an adjustment on my part to enjoy.

Hadi has to make a return trip to the Middle East for a family matter right when anti-immigrant sentiment is at a crisis pitch in the US. A travel ban is put into place the day he is returning to Boston to rejoin his new life with Sama.

For me, this book made the travel ban more personal as I thought about the thousands of lives that were interrupted and changed, many with stories like Hadi and Sama. Faced with uncertainty, should one person stay in the US and hope the other one can someday rejoin them or would it be better to go to another country that might be more accepting of immigrants?

This one gave me things to ponder about the state of our world.

Pros: One thing that I love about reading is how an author can add a human element to big news stories. Although I was aware of the travel ban in January 2017, it felt abstract as I read about it in the news. This book made it feel real by telling stories of what it might have been like for a family affected by the travel ban. Although the travel ban is the impetus of this story, much of the book then flashes back to tell the lives of the two main characters leading up to the day the travel ban went into effect and what it is like to be an immigrant and a refugee from Syria in the United States.

The allusions to birds, flight, and migration throughout was a lovely theme. I also liked the title of this book and how it tied into the themes throughout. Many recently published books seem to have titles that don’t really mean anything, so I appreciated the thoughtfulness of this title.

Although this book deals with heavy subjects, it is not heavy read—it moves quickly (I read it in one day), and it is filled with hope.

Cons: None that I can think of!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the opportunity to read this book.

I’ve shared this review on Goodreads and StoryGraph and will share it on Amazon after the publication date.

No Land to Light on is achingly beautiful, and easily one of the best books i’ve read in a while.

The story follows Hadi and Sama, a Syrian couple who met in Boston and currently reside there. Sama is pregnant with their first child when Hadi has to fly to Jordan to attend his fathers funeral. Upon his return, he is unable to enter the country due to Trumps Muslim Ban. Although the characters were fictional, their story seemed real. The plot was heart wrenching, and it made me shocked all over again that this ban is something that actually happened in real life.

The descriptions of Syria were luscious and vibrant and at the same time utterly melancholy. A major portion of this book is focused on the immigrant experience, and it was so heartbreaking to hear about the grief that comes with being forced to leave home and never again feeling like you’re in the right place.

The highlight of this book for me was the writing. Zgheib’s prose was lyrical without being distracting. Every sentence was impactful. This is a short book (I think I read it in 2ish hours), and I found it impressive that the story was both so beautiful and so poignant in such few words. The short chapters and fragmented style also made the book compulsively readable and I couldn’t put it down.

The use of perspective was also very creative — and this is coming from someone who pretty much never notices this sort of thing. Some of the chapters are almost like letters written back and forth from Sama and Hadi, which are in second person. Then we have their love story/how they met/their own immigration stories, which are in third person. The present day storyline is in first person. It sounds like it would be confusing, but it wasn’t at all and actually weaved all the different timelines together so seamlessly.

My only complaint is that the ending seemed rushed and didn’t allow for much exploration of the characters motivations/decisions. I love short books, but I do think this story could’ve benefited from maybe 50-100 more pages.

I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would, but I definitely shed a few small tears towards the end. I cannot recommend this book enough and can’t wait to get a final copy once it is published in January.


*Many thanks to Netgalley and Atria books for providing an Advanced Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review*

Sama and Hadi have both come to this country for different reasons. Sama has been here for 7 years. She came to get an education and a brighter future than what she knew awaited her in Syria. Hadi has been here only a short while. He is fleeing a bloody civil war in Syria and had a Visa as a sponsored refugee.

These two meet and seem to fall instantly in love. Before long they are married and expecting their first child.

When Hadi finds out that his father has died he doesn’t take much time to think about what may happen, he gets on a plane home to Syria. It is the night before his Visa appointment at the embassy!

When Hadi is trying to return, he is stopped at the border. The President has stopped all immigrants from Syria and other middle eastern countries from entering the United States. Hadi tries to explain that he is a sponsored refugee, but his Visa is revoked, permanently.

Without going into any more of the plot, this is all the background you will know about this couple.

Here are some of the problems that I had with the book.

First off I found the couple to be very unfocused as to their future. We don’t know their backstories very well, only their feelings. Where has the money come from for them to be able to fly here and then Hadi back to Syria and then here??

Once the baby is born, prematurely, and is in a hospital NICU, Sama seems to realize that for her son to have a bright future, they must stay in the US. He is an American citizen.

The book is told from both Hadi and Sama’s perspectives. There are also sections between chapters that discuss migratory birds and their flights. I didn’t really see the comparison. The birds are flying these patterns because they are instinctual, while the author seems to be saying that they are flying towards freedom??

I wasn’t prepared for the amount of prose in this book since this is my first by this author. By the second half I was growing tired of trying to unscramble the prose and what it was trying to say and just wanted the story to continue.

As written I felt that the book had a disjointed feel to it. The story didn’t flow well and I found myself skimming parts of it.

I know that I’m the outlier on this one. I did like the idea of putting faces on those that are suffering. It may be that I just have a problem with this author’s writing style.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

From the beginning pages, I had a feeling this book was going to wreck me. Zgheib's writing is absolutely beautiful; though I was invested in the characters and their histories in Syria before immigrating to the U.S., it was her prose that really elevated this one for me.

An emotional sucker punch of a novel about how Trump's immigration order tears apart a family. Sama and Hadi's love story is so engrossing that when she give premature birth and he's forced to go back to Syria.

This was a heart wrenching story of two refugees that find each other in America and begin a life together. But life takes a turn when the husband returns to his country to bury his father and ends up unable to return to America due to political orders. The story is very fast paced and keeps a reader turning pages until the very end. This story provides readers an eye opening view of what it means to be a refugee and the emotional turmoil they go through as they fight and sometimes succeed to come to America. But also the pain they continue to experience knowing who and what they have left behind.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book.

No Land to Light On was an incredibly powerful novel that humanized a period of time not too long ago when people traveling from the Middle East to the U.S. - American citizens and non-citizens alike - were denied entry simply because of where they were from. Being Canadian, I was aware of what was happening from the news but did not have any extensive knowledge. Watching the news, they tell you the number of people denied entry, the number of people deported, and the countries they were coming from. What they do not tell you is about who these people are, who their families are, how much they love and appreciate being in a country that is meant to be "free" and a place of refuge.
The story of Sama and Hadi is heartbreaking. Obstacle after obstacle, Hadi tries to find his way home to his wife and his newborn baby in America. It is infuriating to read about border services threatening people, lying to them, accusing them without any grounds for suspicion just because of how they look and where they're from. Though it is a fictional story, we knew this is too true for so many people. Hardship after hardship, they still have hope that they will be together as a family again, and will do anything to make that happen. Even though these are not things I have personally experienced, Zgheib was able to incite so much emotion in her writing that I could feel what these characters were feeling - the longing, the sadness, the anger and frustration.
The intermittent passages about various birds and their flight patterns offered interesting breaks in the story and I think added a very unique element to the storytelling. It evoked a sense of mystery and wonder that some things in nature can't be explained.