New Book Alert: The Unseen Path by Zlaikha Y. Samad and L'mere Younossi; Sequel to The Unseen Blossom Reveals The Real World Surrounding The Fantasy

 

New Book Alert: The Unseen Path by Zlaikha Y. Samad and L'mere Younossi; Sequel to The Unseen Blossom Reveals The Real World Surrounding The Fantasy

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: In 2019, I had the pleasure of reading my favorite book of that year and one of my all-time favorites since this blog began, The Unseen Blossom by Zlaikha Y. Samad and L'mere Younossi. This stunningly beautiful and allegorical love story is set in Afghanistan and stars Zuli and Lamar. In a modern day fairy tale, the duo are given a task to search for a fig blossom. They travel through various dream like landscapes and are aided by magical guides before they reach the end of their quest and find love with each other. They are also given a much larger task of sharing the lessons that they learned about love and empathy with the world. I did not exaggerate when I described The Unseen Blossom as "walking into someone else's dream." 

Well, I now have the pleasure of reviewing The Unseen Path, the sequel, and it's a thorny pleasure. Not because it's a bad book. In fact, it's just the opposite. However, if The Unseen Blossom is a fantastic dream, then The Unseen Path is what happens after the dreamer wakes up and reality sets in. The Unseen Path shows us the real Afghanistan in which Zuli and Lamar live. It is a world in which it is difficult to share such a fantastic journey among intense poverty and strict laws, a romance between lovers of different social classes, and ideas of empathy and love that are hard to share in a country that is torn apart by war.

The book begins where The Unseen Blossom ends. Zuli and Lamar have returned from their journey.There is a strong tonal shift in the book that is both jarring, but at the same time realistic in how quickly the world can change for people. The first half of the book somewhat retains the fantastic elements of the previous book, though bordering more on romantic comedy rather than fantasy. There are Zuli's regal but distant parents who are bound by tradition. There is Zuli's loyal maternal nanny, Gulnar. There are some seriocomic moments that illustrate the class differences between the pair.

 It seems that Samad and Younossi are invoking a Jane Austen-esque comedy of manners involving star crossed lovers. 

Then reality crashes in and the Reader is aware that this book is set Afghanistan in 1979.

The Soviet-Afghan War is foreshadowed in the first half of the book by rumors of war. Zuli's father, the king, fears that Russia may invade. But like a murderer in a movie that is first introduced as an extra where the audience's focus is on the lovers in the foreground, these rumors are mere whispers or dark clouds on the horizon. Only in hindsight, after a second reading, do those dark clouds become important.

Once war hits, it does so in a way that catapults Zuli, Lamar, and the Reader headlong into reality. There is so much grief and anguish, partly because it is so unexpected. The destroyed buildings which only chapters before held such friendly people are reduced to rubble. People like Zuli and Lamar make every day plans to get together, go to work, share a drink, or just hang out only to be cruelly ripped apart possibly never to see each other again. 

It would be tempting to make Zuli and Lamar soldiers, warriors, and hell bent on revenge against the people who destroyed their country (and really who could blame them?). But that path would contradict the lessons that they learned in The Unseen Blossom. They use their talents, abilities, and personalities to aid the people around them. To provide healing, education, empathy, and love through their actions. They are learning to put into practical use the lessons that they have been taught. Those lessons take them through the immense grief and suffering that surround them.

Is The Unseen Path a better book than The Unseen Blossom? Well, they are so different that it's almost like comparing two completely different entities. Even though they are written by the same authors, featuring the same deuteragonist characters, and carry similar themes. The Unseen Blossom is a one of a kind spiritual fantasy into a dream world. The Unseen Path shows one how to put the love, magic, and kindness that is shown in the dream world into the real one. It shows how one can turn that fantasy into reality and plant the blossom that grows a better world.

New Book Alert: The Unseen Blossom by Zlaikha Y. Samad and L’mere Younossi; Beautiful Magical Allegorical Modern Fairy Tale About Empathy and Love

New Book Alert: The Unseen Blossom by Zlaikha Y. Samad and L’mere Younossi; Beautiful Magical Allegorical Modern Fairy Tale About Empathy and Love




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The Unseen Blossom reads almost like a fairy tale. Once Upon a Time, a princess meets a handsome commoner. They are given a task to go on a journey to retrieve a magical object. Along the way, they encounter other creatures that either help or hinder their progress giving them side quests that add to their journey. After much struggle, they reach their goal and fall in love.

Cut and dry, The Unseen Blossom would be no different from “Cinderella” or “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp,” but the authors, Zlaikha Y. Samad and L'mere Younossi made their fairytale much deeper than the usual clichés. Instead The Unseen Blossom is a beautiful allegorical tale about love and empathy that has plenty of romance and magic that the best fairy tales share. It is for all ages and people of all faiths.

Princess Zuli, an Afghan princess, visits her favorite fig tree in her garden but while caring for the tree she is pushed onto the path of Lamar, a shoemaker's son. The two encounter a rock creature that tells them that Afghanistan is a country torn apart by war, bloodshed, and inequality. What can help save it is a fig blossom. The two are destined to work together to find it and bring it to Kabul.

This will be an odd quest. (After all, who has ever seen a fig tree blossom?) But journey they do through a landscape of fairies, royal fish, flying horses, talking birds and many strange landscapes with such names as The Garden of Tulips, The Garden of Lily Ponds, and The Garden of Roses to reach their goal.

It's kind of strange to say this about a book that has no illustrations, but The Unseen Blossom is a visually beautiful book. Samad and Younossi's writing creates evocative word pictures that are vibrant almost hallucinatory. The secret is in the little details such as their description of a waterfall in which the “water pounded onto the rocks below, creating an enticing silvery pool. Under the moon's gaze, the waterfall looked like a wall of shimmering silver and gold coins.”

Some of the most beautiful sections are in the Garden of Tulips and the Garden of Roses. The former features the characters traveling through a garden of different colored flowers that are so delicately described that the fragrances leaps off the pages.

The flora in the Garden of Roses is a somewhat disappointing follow up consisting solely of white roses, but the bird life more than makes up for that. Not only are they different types, but they are so dense that there are moments where the bird's wings look like something else; crows resemble a night sky, doves take the form of wings, multicolored plumages resemble tiaras and gowns. These details and descriptions give off the impression that the Reader is walking into someone else's dream.

Besides the dream like setting, Samad and Younossi give us compelling characters to take this fairy tale journey. Zuli is hardly a damsel in distress. She is aware of the situations outside the palace walls because she often dressed as a commoner to sneak out. She is very adventurous and sometimes haughty. (She engages in a few quarrels with Lamar along the way.) However she is also skilled in diplomacy such as when she negotiates with a tyrannical fish queen who surprisingly acquiesces to her suggestion with little argument. Zuli has what it takes to be a good ruler especially in a male dominated society.

Lamar is also a developed character. While not a prince, he is extremely charming as he shows in a letter he composes to Zuli revealing his deep feeling for her. He is quite intelligent as he is able to recognize signs and portents. He is also very protective of Zuli as we learn that he used to follow her on her excursions out of the palace. Throughout the book, Zuli and Lamar show that they are more than their titles of princess and commoner and that is the point of their journey.

As Zuli and Lamar travel, they probe into their inner consciousness and become self-actualized. Some characters appear that had previous connections to them through dreams and stories, implying that they are spirit guides to help them on their path.

Part of this self-actualization is empathy. Every time they help other characters or each other, they understand their predicament and do all they can to change that. They know that to help heal a country that has been torn apart by war, people need to empathize with each other and see others as people and not enemies incapable of understanding.