الباهرة

2.5 stars. (I read this in Arabic but for the life of me I can never form a coherent sentence in Arabic).
I tried reading this book from the perspective of a 12-13 year old person (which explains my relatively high rating). I used to love love love Emily Nasrallah back when I was around that age but still I couldn't quite get myself to love this book as I had loved all of her other books.
The book reminds me a lot of the Alchemist. It tells the story of a 15 year-old boy sent out on a mission to find a legendary flower that is said to bring happiness and wealth to anyone who grasps it.
What I loved most about this book and what I think the Alchemist (Or maybe I just forgot that about the book?) failed to portray is the internal conflict the boy “Mokhtar” was having with himself. On a long treacherous hard and full of struggles journey, this is most natural and I think it was portrayed accurately. However, the problem with the Arabic language is that it can hold a lot of this sophisticated decorated colourful full of clichés language that I am so sick of. It reminded me why I ditched books in this language more than a year and a half ago. I am not going to give up on the language of course. I think there are a lot of treasures out there written in this language. I just need to have more heart to explore them.
P.S. I got the first volume of a thousand nights and a night in Arabic. So excited about that one :D