Book review - Displaced

Title: Displaced

Author: Dean Hughes

Genre: realistic fiction:

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Rating:

 

a little bit heartbreaking

Summary (provided by publisher): Thirteen-year-old Hadi Toma and his family are displaced. At least that’s what the Lebanese government calls them and the thousands of other Syrian refugees that have flooded into Beirut. But as Hadi tries to earn money to feed his family by selling gum on the street corner, he learns that many people who travel the city don’t think they’re displaced—they think that they don’t belong in this country either. Each day he hears insults, but each day he convinces himself they don’t matter, approaching the cars again and again. He hardly dares to dream anymore that this might change.
But then Hadi meets Malek, who has been instructed to work on the same corner. Malek, who talks about going to school and becoming an engineer. But Malek is new to the streets, and Kamal, the man who oversees many of the local street vendors, tells Malek he must work the corner…alone. And people who don’t follow Kamal’s orders don’t last long.
Now Hadi is forced to make a choice between engaging in illegal activities or letting his family starve. Can the boys find a way out of their impossible situation, or will the dream of something greater than their harsh realities remain stubbornly out of reach?

My opinion: It isn't often that we get a refugee story that doesn't end with the main character in a new home in the west, opportunity wide open in front of them. Hughes presents us instead with a family trapped by poverty, in a country already stretched thin for resources. This is a scenario where they were once helped by NGOs but that funding has dried up. The best Hadi can hope for is a slight improvement in circumstances, a situation where he may be able to go to school, where his family may have enough to eat without begging. The greatest value to a book like this one is putting a human face to a crisis.

 Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley