Book Review: "The Syrian Virgin" by Zack Love

The Syrian Virgin by Zack Love
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Rated R for sensuality, sexuality, strong language, strong violence, and mature thematic material.

I was asked to read and review this book even though—actually, because—I don’t seem to be the intended audience (which seems to be romance fans). Nevertheless, I will give this my best shot.

My first question was why, precisely, this book seems to have appeal to romance fans. If, as has been suggested to me, the book is about the persecution of Syrian Christians, why would the main audience like books such as Fifty Shades of Grey and books with covers featuring lingerie-clad women? To answer this, I will analyze the superficial aspects of the book that may create strong first impressions in the readers.

To start, upon beginning this book, my eye was caught by a few things: the cover, the title, the author’s name, the Table of Contents, the Acknowledgment, and the Dedication. Who reads (and analyzes) these things? *Raising hand* Yes, that’s me. Prepare yourself.

I. (a) The Cover

I love the cover—sort of. Well, it is well designed. It is a close-up shot of a young woman’s face with a reflection of fire in her eye—which, incidentally, communicates her overall inability to act. She is clearly watching passively; there is no suggest of concern, fear, horror, shock, or anger in her face. She is like a blank canvas. We also see the corner of her headwrap and, behind the title, there is a shot of a brightly lit American bridge at night. Which bridge? Beats me. The combination of these images points out the obvious culture clash and presents the question of the heroine’s unexplained naïveté, given that fire (which we presume is literal fire but could just as easily be the figurative fire of passion). The nighttime setting of the bridge also carries with it some sensual undertones.

The main issues are (a) the color scheme, (b) the title, and (c) the author’s name. First, the color scheme is red, black, and white, which, in my personal experience, tends to suggest dark and potentially steamy romances or affairs or such. Examples include Twilight, The Heist Society, Sunshine, The Sea of Tranquility, Looking for Alaska, The White Cat, Beastly and Thirteen Reasons Why. Alternatively, the color scheme may suggest lots of violence—often along with the romance, as in the books I mentioned above.

Second, the title is The Syrian Virgin. What is the operative word here? You guessed it: Virgin. Syrian only adds additional illicitness to the title. You know—“Ooh, Middle Eastern affairs? Hidden beauty and forbidden love? Getting past the veil to that sultry-ness? Edgy!!!”

Third, the author’s name is Zack Love, and his last name is put in obvious proximity to the word Virgin. I have nothing against his name, but the cover designer really could have put extra effort into separating those two words were this not a steamy romance novel.

So there you have it. In my opinion, the color scheme, the prominent words in the title, and the placement of the author’s admittedly evocative last name contribute, along with the cover images, to the romantic appeal of the book. There really is no other obvious potential audience for this book based on the cover.

I. (b) The Table of Contents, the Acknowledgment, and the Dedication

First of all, the chapter titles alternate between Anissa and Julien. This implies that this is a romance story that starts at chapter 13 (how portentous). There is no foreshadowing whatsoever about the actual contents of the book other than that admittedly superficial information.

Second, the first words of the acknowledgment are “Publishing this book just two months after the story first came to me . . . .” Okay. So all I know about the book by the time I have looked at the cover, the table of contents, and the acknowledgement are that there is a heavy focus on romance and this was a hastily written book. So far, I have serious doubts about the lasting value of the story.

The Dedication, though, is the first real hint about the importance of the book’s content: To the people of Syria. The world let you down. This is the first thing that hooked me, an admitted reader of YA and children’s [clean] fantasy and realistic fiction. 10/10 points for a winning dedication.

II. Quick Summary

Anissa is a young Christian woman who fled from Syria at the age of fourteen when her parents and brother were murdered by jihadists. As a seventeen-year-old college student narrating to her diary the events of her life, both past and present, Anissa remains deeply haunted by the events of her childhood. As she struggles to literally make the grade in her courses, she searches for a way to work for her fellow Syrian Christians who are still being viciously persecuted. At the same time, she is searching for love and must decide between two very good prospects.

III. And Now…The Content!

The hook is okay. Italicized flashback—perhaps a tad clichéd, but good. Sentimentality abounds, though.

I do have some questions. First of all, after having suffered through so much, would Anissa really go Facebook/Twitter stalking for this guy she has a crush on? She retweets, she shares, she posts, and she is basically the ultimate social media activist. Plus, where is she getting all of her money? She is seeing a therapist regularly and taking undoubtedly expensive martial arts classes for years, but she doesn’t have a job. She seems to have effortlessly assimilated into the American college culture, despite the frequent mentions of her difficulties with the hyper-sexualization of our culture. There are just a lot of character inconsistencies.

In addition, she is a beautiful genius haunted by her past, going to a prestigious school, while crushing on a dark, smolderingly handsome polyglot genius with a similar backstory who is also getting his Ph.D. while managing an activist group, working “as a freelance journalist,” owning a PR company, training in martial arts, and playing music. She is also being lusted after for her beauty and unavailability and virginity and all that by her 41-year-old genius and “ultimate bachelor” college professor who is also a billionaire genius with a troubled past and an addiction to 20-something girls (maybe younger). I’m sensing a pattern here. There is only so much of this that I can realistically take, and I am not convinced that this is in any way based in reality. If it is, I mourn for our culture’s understanding of reality. The entire book, in fact, feels like a Harlequin novel that is playing on the current hot topics. Of course, I will readily admit that I have never read a Harlequin novel—but if this is anything like them, I plan on keeping it that way. I agree that the persecution of the Syrian Christians is abominable and needs to be addressed and abolished now—preferably years ago!—but this book is much shallower than it pretends to be.

I also have two more questions. If Anissa grew up in a devout Christian home in Syria, where to be Christian is to have to be committed to the point of death, how/why did she (a) not know anything about the evolutionary model before entering the States, especially in a relatively well-off family that gave her lots of schooling (remember that her sister was going to a music college, the family had a maid, and they also had enough savings to smuggle Anissa into the U.S. illegally via Canada and provide a good amount of funds to start her off), and (b) why did she automatically and unquestioningly accept it as soon as she entered the U.S. school system, even though it directly contrasts with a literal translation of the Biblical Creation?

Also, I’m having a hard time believing that her mother would have sent Anissa off with the explicit instructions to retain her virginity for the right guy without emphasizing the importance of that same person’s religion. It’s just that there are enough passages in the Bible emphasizing the importance of unity of faith within a marriage that I am not thoroughly convinced that Anissa’s mother—or even Anissa—doesn’t think of that aspect at all. Besides, in Christian doctrine, marriage is a human-sized picture of our relationship with God, whereas there is nothing about that in The Sÿrian Virgin. Personally, I think that in that situation a Christian American would be better than a Syrian atheist or an American gnostic, but maybe I am wrong. Just some thoughts.

Ack. This has been a really disorganized section. Let’s just move on, shall we? I’m not going to finish the book anyway.

IV. Overview of Book’s Overall Value

Well, I gave this book my best shot. I did. I got 68% of the way through it—and it is my first Kindle book. I just couldn’t take it anymore. About the time that Anissa was getting all sexual and Julien was seriously considering accosting her, I just couldn’t take finishing the book. It is an R-rated book in almost every way. Plus, Zack Love has an amateurish writing style with a lot of Tell-Don’t-Show with things that really matter and a lot of Show-Don’t-Tell for all of the R-rated sexual sections. I…I just can’t. Really. I can’t finish this. The book’s contents fulfill all of promises of the cover, the table of contents, and the acknowledgment. It’s relatively well-researched, but the characters are flat and unrealistic with little genuine character development and impact on me as a reader, and I was never hooked into the plot.

In addition, Zack Love seems to be genuinely struggling with the Syrian conflict, which is basically taking a backseat to the love triangle. To be fair, he tries so hard to raise awareness of the issues that the media is deliberately ignoring, but in an ironic twist, the Syrian holocaust keeps taking second place to the truly icky romances going on. The Syrian virgin seems to be heading toward being torn between her 41-year-old billionaire adulterous psychology professor and the equally intelligent and egotistical boyfriend, who has also had multiple affairs. Neither one of them is Christian, whereas I would suspect that a girl of Anissa’s background would be specifically looking for someone who shares her religious beliefs. Actually, I can’t believe that her faithful and loving mother would not have specified the importance of looking for and marrying a Christian. For a book about a Syrian Christian and her purity, there is a marked lack of actual Christian values being held.

I guess that I did not find myself really enlightened by reading this book, and I was more disgusted than anything by the increasingly explicit sexuality. I quit when that started getting pretty strong, but even though I am truly concerned about the events in the Middle East and think that more needs to be done to work for our brothers and sisters in Christ, this book does not meet these needs but rather seems like it compounds them by placing a high emphasis on the love triangle and Anissa’s need to lose her virginity or some such balderdash.

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