Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek

This book was very hard to read. It takes place in the midst of a war zone, which is true of a number of award nominated and winning documentaries, but somehow this story is more graphic, more real, and just as brutal. Rima, a young neurodivergent girl from Damascus, longs to walk, to be free to follow the will of her feet, but instead is perpetually constrained. She finds refuge in a fantasy world full of colored crayons, secret planets, and The Little Prince, reciting passages of the Qur’an like a mantra as everything and everyone around her is blown to bits. Since Rima hardly ever speaks, people do not know quite what to make of her, but she is just doing her best—the madness in the battered city around her would change us all for the worse. One day while taking a bus through Damascus, a soldier opens fire and her mother is killed. Rima, wounded, is taken to a military hospital before her brother leads her to the besieged area of Ghouta—where, between bombings, she writes her story. This book, nominated for a National Book Award, offers a surreal depiction of the horrors taking place in Syria, in vivid and poetic language and with a sharp eye for detail and beauty.