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Stillness Dancing
Lilliane has always been drawn by the desert — its emptiness, its eerie beauty and its people. When she takes the trip of a lifetime to a Bedu camp, she finds herself ensnared in a complex web of politics, blood feuds, terrorism and ancient spirits. Karim is trying to find his path in the material world and to marry the girl of his dreams. But his soul cries out for the spiritual path of his fathers. Lilliane’s and Karim’s stories collide in a forgotten, blood-soaked corner of Sinai. Brutalised, captive and bereft, they must find their own ways to survive. A taut, unusual thriller set in the fascinating world of the modern Bedouin, Stillness Dancing shows us that the hardest paths can lead to the deepest wells.
276 pages, Paperback
First published July 4, 2013
8 people want to read
About the author
Jae Erwin
5 books3 followersJAE ERWIN writes, teaches yoga and co-runs a publishing co-operative. She lives on the Pennines, has a husband, three sons, a dog, two cats, three chickens and four vegetable beds – don’t ask her which one she loves the most. Jae has two more novels in progress and has written many short stories, several of them published. A poem or six lurks in her dim and distant past.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 18, 2024
Stillness Dancing is based in Sinai, Egypt, a few years before the Arab Spring uprisings. It is based around 2 British women, Lillian and Lauren, who want to view Egypt in the Bedouin's way. In the beginning, the story shifts timelines and points of view, which was confusing the first time or two, but it wasn't distracting as it all started to tie in together. I have read many reviews that have described the characters as simple... I have to disagree with this frame of thought. I felt that although there weren't many details about the characters, this was left out to not distract from the story's overall message. I felt very connected to the main characters, a Bedouin man named Karim and Lillian.
Having spent much of my career in intelligence studies of differing races, I brought a basic background knowledge to this book. I believe that some background knowledge of the Egyptian Muslim people would be helpful, as the book does attempt to describe basic context and speech to keep the reader from being lost but does not delve into the whole background. (After all, this isn't a customs and courtesies guide). With that being said, I feel that Jae (the author) did a wonderful job capturing the views of the many different sides of cultures in their thinking and actions.
Some sections of the book addressed some problematic and challenging to-fathom issues. Terrorism and kidnapping are a big part of this story, and I did have tears in my eyes a couple of times. However, the sensitive and challenging topics are addressed but not described so that you have to linger on the visuals to the extent of distracting from the story.
Stillness Dancing addresses many similarities (perhaps without meaning) between the Sinai Muslims and the Native Americans. There are many spiritual aspects to this story. I love that it is based on universal oneness, love, and connecting with oneself. I love that it was not limited to any single religion and, therefore, relatable to a larger audience.
My favorite quote in the book was: "I begin by remembering the sound and feeling of the One Being, the wellspring of love. I affirm that the next thing I experience shimmers with the light of the whole Universe."
Overall, I give this book a 5 out of 5 stars. The story was original, and the characters had good character development. I loved the historical fiction aspect and the look into the tribal life of the Sinai Bedouins. It was an eye-opening experience, perhaps not for the faint of heart, but suggested for those who can look at a race of people with an open mind and heart to see that not everyone is the result of one person of their culture.
Having spent much of my career in intelligence studies of differing races, I brought a basic background knowledge to this book. I believe that some background knowledge of the Egyptian Muslim people would be helpful, as the book does attempt to describe basic context and speech to keep the reader from being lost but does not delve into the whole background. (After all, this isn't a customs and courtesies guide). With that being said, I feel that Jae (the author) did a wonderful job capturing the views of the many different sides of cultures in their thinking and actions.
Some sections of the book addressed some problematic and challenging to-fathom issues. Terrorism and kidnapping are a big part of this story, and I did have tears in my eyes a couple of times. However, the sensitive and challenging topics are addressed but not described so that you have to linger on the visuals to the extent of distracting from the story.
Stillness Dancing addresses many similarities (perhaps without meaning) between the Sinai Muslims and the Native Americans. There are many spiritual aspects to this story. I love that it is based on universal oneness, love, and connecting with oneself. I love that it was not limited to any single religion and, therefore, relatable to a larger audience.
My favorite quote in the book was: "I begin by remembering the sound and feeling of the One Being, the wellspring of love. I affirm that the next thing I experience shimmers with the light of the whole Universe."
Overall, I give this book a 5 out of 5 stars. The story was original, and the characters had good character development. I loved the historical fiction aspect and the look into the tribal life of the Sinai Bedouins. It was an eye-opening experience, perhaps not for the faint of heart, but suggested for those who can look at a race of people with an open mind and heart to see that not everyone is the result of one person of their culture.
June 21, 2014
I received a copy of this book through the Read it and Reap group.
Stillness Dancing is a beautifully intense novel that will stay with me long after I have finished. Lilliane and Lauren are on a dream trip, Lilliane has always dreamed of the desert and the life of Beudions. Lauren is up for an adventure and the two are visiting Lauren' s friend who married into the culture. Unbeknownst to them, they are quickly caught up in forces beyond their control and end up in a fight for their lives. kamir is a young man who is struggling with his own identity, he had been following his spiritual teacher, but struggled with feeling the pull of the more material world and winning the heart of a smuggler' s daughter. Karim and Lilliane' s lives are quickly intertwined in a savage way.
The author does a wonderful job of describing the way of life in the Bedu camps and the mixture of the old and modern world. This novel contains both action and spirituality. Certain passages tugged at my heart. I highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys both adventure and spirituality, along with an intimate look at the Beudion lifestyle. Some scenes are a but strong, just a warning.
I am looking forward to reading more from Jae Erwin!
Stillness Dancing is a beautifully intense novel that will stay with me long after I have finished. Lilliane and Lauren are on a dream trip, Lilliane has always dreamed of the desert and the life of Beudions. Lauren is up for an adventure and the two are visiting Lauren' s friend who married into the culture. Unbeknownst to them, they are quickly caught up in forces beyond their control and end up in a fight for their lives. kamir is a young man who is struggling with his own identity, he had been following his spiritual teacher, but struggled with feeling the pull of the more material world and winning the heart of a smuggler' s daughter. Karim and Lilliane' s lives are quickly intertwined in a savage way.
The author does a wonderful job of describing the way of life in the Bedu camps and the mixture of the old and modern world. This novel contains both action and spirituality. Certain passages tugged at my heart. I highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys both adventure and spirituality, along with an intimate look at the Beudion lifestyle. Some scenes are a but strong, just a warning.
I am looking forward to reading more from Jae Erwin!
August 5, 2013
This book is full of surprises. From the title, I assumed it might be about ‘lust in the dust’, but while there is a love story, many other dark and bloody strands are woven in to make a compelling and powerful read.
We meet Lilianne and her friend Lauren, two British women who embark on a dream holiday to the Sinai Peninsula to discover ‘the real Egypt’, only to have their adventure go horribly wrong. They are drawn into a world of terrorism, kidnap, violence and human trafficking where as women and westerners they become helpless victims. Set alongside their ordeal is the threatened world of Bedouin tribes and the story of their guide, Karim, adept in the mystic ways of desert dwellers, whose life is embroiled in smuggling and a bitter blood feud.
Stillness Dancing worked best as a complex thriller for me. I found Lilliane’s spiritual journey less gripping, though it helped at least to counterbalance some aspects of the women’s harrowing experience. The male characters are especially well drawn and believable, from the embattled chief of police to the tribal wise man. And I also thought the various hierarchies representing tradition and modernity, Bedu and Egyptian and young and old were authentically portrayed.
All in all I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a page-turning read with some unexpected depths.
We meet Lilianne and her friend Lauren, two British women who embark on a dream holiday to the Sinai Peninsula to discover ‘the real Egypt’, only to have their adventure go horribly wrong. They are drawn into a world of terrorism, kidnap, violence and human trafficking where as women and westerners they become helpless victims. Set alongside their ordeal is the threatened world of Bedouin tribes and the story of their guide, Karim, adept in the mystic ways of desert dwellers, whose life is embroiled in smuggling and a bitter blood feud.
Stillness Dancing worked best as a complex thriller for me. I found Lilliane’s spiritual journey less gripping, though it helped at least to counterbalance some aspects of the women’s harrowing experience. The male characters are especially well drawn and believable, from the embattled chief of police to the tribal wise man. And I also thought the various hierarchies representing tradition and modernity, Bedu and Egyptian and young and old were authentically portrayed.
All in all I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a page-turning read with some unexpected depths.
June 11, 2014
I received this book to review through Read it and Reap
I have to admit that this story did not draw me in at the beginning. The jumping back and forth in the time frame coupled with two of the main characters having similar names, Lauren & Lillianne, made it a little confusing. Perhaps I just wasn't concentrating hard enough. However, I am certainly glad that I wasn't put off.
The story develops into a real page turner. I'm afraid that the Middle East that we see via the news is just an area that has been torn apart by conflict for many decades, but Jae Erwin presents another dimension to us. The wonder of the desert and the mysticism of the ancient beliefs is brought alive for the reader.
Although the story includes violence, cruelty and conflict we are given a feeling of wonder and optimism, where one day the deep inner goodness in people may prevail.
If you are willing to travel outside your comfort zone and at the same time open your mind to the inexplicable then Stillness Dancing certainly will not disappoint.
I have to admit that this story did not draw me in at the beginning. The jumping back and forth in the time frame coupled with two of the main characters having similar names, Lauren & Lillianne, made it a little confusing. Perhaps I just wasn't concentrating hard enough. However, I am certainly glad that I wasn't put off.
The story develops into a real page turner. I'm afraid that the Middle East that we see via the news is just an area that has been torn apart by conflict for many decades, but Jae Erwin presents another dimension to us. The wonder of the desert and the mysticism of the ancient beliefs is brought alive for the reader.
Although the story includes violence, cruelty and conflict we are given a feeling of wonder and optimism, where one day the deep inner goodness in people may prevail.
If you are willing to travel outside your comfort zone and at the same time open your mind to the inexplicable then Stillness Dancing certainly will not disappoint.
May 31, 2014
Thriller fans: Recently I had the privilege of reading a book by Jae Erwin, an author with a knack for unique storytelling. Although I must admit I didn't immediately get into it, the book really begins to take hold of you later on. Being generally less appreciative of lifelike storytelling, I usually steer clear and immerse myself in worlds of fantasy and science fiction. True or nearly true to life stories just never clicked with me. Religious fantasy, or at least a light religious fantasy aspect, is where she sucked me in.
It struck me when I was reading this book how little I knew about the Islamic religion, even having read from the Koran myself. What's crazy is that Erwin was able to take aspects of life that are true to religion—or at least I suspect so—and breathe an odd, light, true-life fantasy into them that really begins to take over the deeper you get into this story. Stillness Dancing begins with some women who are not so different from the female family members we love so much. One has a little more experience with the Bedouin culture. All of them are unprepared for the road ahead.
This book introduces you to a culture that finds little issue with drug peddling. For some, it's just a way of making money for the village. Also, all Middle Eastern laws concerning women tend to apply, with exceptions for Western women in some parts. If you are a Western woman, absolutely do not venture off without your male chaperone. Chaperone or not, the female leads In this story find themselves captive to a psychotic narcissist interested in hurting others and furthering his own end.
A plus and minus of this story is the level of deprivation of these captors. The leader is a terrorist for an organization opposed to the Western way of life. Like all Middle Eastern terrorists, he twists his own religion to mold it into one that allows him to do his evil. His evil…is terrible, inhumane, and some of the worst ongoing physical and sexual assault you can imagine in a book. In fact, it carries on and their situation gets worse. It felt so real sometimes that I found myself stopping to allow my brain time to remind my heart that these women weren't actually real and nothing was happening to them. I had to stop and take breaks, because every time one of them experienced the terror of this brute, the book would give clues to the amount of time they were spending in captivity in between. This story will break your heart. I can't tell you how sad it made me to read the words, two weeks later, or several days later. From my experience with Stillness Dancing, I've learned that well-written books can truly suck you in. Erwin knows how to create characters and conversation, and she most definitely knows how to create a villain.
A great thing about Erwin is that she is an author from within a collective of authors that makes up Firedance books, a non-for-profit editing and publishing company for and by the authors. It most definitely seems to have its advantages. An interesting, if not amazing, fact about Jae Erwin is that she seems to love to invent words, which is something I'm also a fan of. In the publishing and editing world, there is a cut and slash attitude toward inventive wording and, considering Shakespeare himself is credited with inventing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,700 words, it completely boggles my mind. The crush of the corporate publishing industry is less felt in the pages of Stillness Dancing. I would read this 5 out of 5 star work again, and I think you should as well.
A http://www.fanboysanonymous.com/ review
It struck me when I was reading this book how little I knew about the Islamic religion, even having read from the Koran myself. What's crazy is that Erwin was able to take aspects of life that are true to religion—or at least I suspect so—and breathe an odd, light, true-life fantasy into them that really begins to take over the deeper you get into this story. Stillness Dancing begins with some women who are not so different from the female family members we love so much. One has a little more experience with the Bedouin culture. All of them are unprepared for the road ahead.
This book introduces you to a culture that finds little issue with drug peddling. For some, it's just a way of making money for the village. Also, all Middle Eastern laws concerning women tend to apply, with exceptions for Western women in some parts. If you are a Western woman, absolutely do not venture off without your male chaperone. Chaperone or not, the female leads In this story find themselves captive to a psychotic narcissist interested in hurting others and furthering his own end.
A plus and minus of this story is the level of deprivation of these captors. The leader is a terrorist for an organization opposed to the Western way of life. Like all Middle Eastern terrorists, he twists his own religion to mold it into one that allows him to do his evil. His evil…is terrible, inhumane, and some of the worst ongoing physical and sexual assault you can imagine in a book. In fact, it carries on and their situation gets worse. It felt so real sometimes that I found myself stopping to allow my brain time to remind my heart that these women weren't actually real and nothing was happening to them. I had to stop and take breaks, because every time one of them experienced the terror of this brute, the book would give clues to the amount of time they were spending in captivity in between. This story will break your heart. I can't tell you how sad it made me to read the words, two weeks later, or several days later. From my experience with Stillness Dancing, I've learned that well-written books can truly suck you in. Erwin knows how to create characters and conversation, and she most definitely knows how to create a villain.
A great thing about Erwin is that she is an author from within a collective of authors that makes up Firedance books, a non-for-profit editing and publishing company for and by the authors. It most definitely seems to have its advantages. An interesting, if not amazing, fact about Jae Erwin is that she seems to love to invent words, which is something I'm also a fan of. In the publishing and editing world, there is a cut and slash attitude toward inventive wording and, considering Shakespeare himself is credited with inventing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,700 words, it completely boggles my mind. The crush of the corporate publishing industry is less felt in the pages of Stillness Dancing. I would read this 5 out of 5 star work again, and I think you should as well.
A http://www.fanboysanonymous.com/ review
June 6, 2014
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author for her generosity.
A gripping and evocative story of two women on their dream vacation only to have it turn horribly wrong. As I am not much familiar with customs and lifestyles of middle-eastern peoples beyond what I read and hear in the news, the setting sucked me right in.
Ms. Erwin has a deft hand at describing surroundings, including smells, which made me feel a part of the story. I was often surprised to stop reading and realize I wasn't, in fact, in the desert with Bedouins but at home.
All the characters are well drawn and believable, from the extremist religious terrorist, the policemen, and the spiritual tribesmen. The political parts of the story include some horrific torture. I had to often stop, knowing there are probably people who have gone through what the captives did. That made the characters struggles all the more terrifying to me. The spiritual aspects of the book had a fantasy feel to them, which I didn't mind.
Hat's off to Ms. Erwin, as I devoured this book, something I have not had the pleasure of doing until now. Thank you for the great read.
A gripping and evocative story of two women on their dream vacation only to have it turn horribly wrong. As I am not much familiar with customs and lifestyles of middle-eastern peoples beyond what I read and hear in the news, the setting sucked me right in.
Ms. Erwin has a deft hand at describing surroundings, including smells, which made me feel a part of the story. I was often surprised to stop reading and realize I wasn't, in fact, in the desert with Bedouins but at home.
All the characters are well drawn and believable, from the extremist religious terrorist, the policemen, and the spiritual tribesmen. The political parts of the story include some horrific torture. I had to often stop, knowing there are probably people who have gone through what the captives did. That made the characters struggles all the more terrifying to me. The spiritual aspects of the book had a fantasy feel to them, which I didn't mind.
Hat's off to Ms. Erwin, as I devoured this book, something I have not had the pleasure of doing until now. Thank you for the great read.
October 24, 2013
For Lilliane and Lauren, an adventure to the Sinai and a holiday living among Bedouins is the dream of a lifetime. But the dream soon turns to a nightmare as they are kidnapped and held by a violent group who terrorize and torture them.
During the ordeal, Lilliane grows close to Kamil, the tour guide who was meant to keep them safe. The bridge between Lilliane and Kamil is spiritual and transcends culture. It proves to be the very thing that will save them both.
Jae Erwin does a wonderful job of presenting the clash of cultures that tear people apart and the spirit that glues them back together. The scenes of torture are emotional and difficult to read -- Stillness Dancing evokes a harsh land and a people hardened by conflict. Yet Erwin’s story manages to go beyond this and find the deep beauty that lies both in the culture and the landscape.
Stillness Dancing is more than a thriller, it is spiritual read that will stay with readers for a long time after they’ve finished the book.
During the ordeal, Lilliane grows close to Kamil, the tour guide who was meant to keep them safe. The bridge between Lilliane and Kamil is spiritual and transcends culture. It proves to be the very thing that will save them both.
Jae Erwin does a wonderful job of presenting the clash of cultures that tear people apart and the spirit that glues them back together. The scenes of torture are emotional and difficult to read -- Stillness Dancing evokes a harsh land and a people hardened by conflict. Yet Erwin’s story manages to go beyond this and find the deep beauty that lies both in the culture and the landscape.
Stillness Dancing is more than a thriller, it is spiritual read that will stay with readers for a long time after they’ve finished the book.
June 14, 2014
This story was an intense moving plot. Lilliane and her friend Lauren embark on a trip to the Middle East to get a personal experience of the desert and oases. A trip of a lifetime that turns out not to be the stuff dreams are made of but the torments of a nightmare that doesn't want to end. The descriptions of the setting of this drama is very well explained. You can picture in your mind the hot desert sand and feel the scorching of the hot desert heat. The huts that are fashioned to give shelter from the elements and even the sighting of the snake and the coyote in the distance. By the end of the story I felt I got to know some of the customs and ways of the tribes of the Sahara Desert and the spiritual heritage that is a part of their lives. This is not a fluff, fun read type of novel but still I found myself totally immersed in it and invested to read all the way to the end to see the final outcome of their trip. In my opinion this is a well written believable story that could be ripped from today's news headlines and I want to read more by this author.
September 24, 2013
In Stillness Dancing we're drawn into the hard world of the Bedouin tribes in the Sinai Peninsula. For some, terrorism, violence, kidnapping and torture have become a way of life. While this story deals with these issues, becoming grim in places, it is Lilliane’s spiritual journey, guided by Karim, adept in the mystic ways of the desert, that makes this story so fascinating to me. As Lilliane's physical pain intensifies at the hands of her kidnappers, her spirit makes a journey of its own, growing closer to The One. This is a complex, authentic and often a beautiful story well worth reading.
September 4, 2013
First up, I should say I did some editing work on this book, so yes, I know the author and wish her well. Having said that my view of the book is genuine. Stillness Dancing is an unusual and captivating novel. It has a deep spiritual core, which doesn't get in the way of the taut thriller. The desert world is beautifully evoked. This is a novel well worth reading.
June 16, 2014
You can find this on my blog, too:
http://reading-is-dreaming-with-open-...
An e-book copy was given to me by the author for an honest review.
It's such a hard thing for me to rate and review this book. On one hand it was nothing I've been looking for, after reading the blurb I was eager to read about a lot of action and the characters investigating and examining their surroundings and solving some mysteries without the help of the police. Unfortunately my idea of the book was far from the real thing.
The Story-line:
So, the story wasn't that bad but unlike other reviewers I don't think it was full of mysteries and shocking things, actually it was a bit boring, they got captivated after half of the book! I mean I can see how necessary the background story of Karim was, or how we have to see the background of the captivators, ergo the whole picture together but couldn't the author make it somehow more exciting because reading about Lilliane's and Lauren's journey from detail to detail, wasn't too fascinating. At all.
The political background was pretty well written, how all the villains of the story connected together was incredible. I liked that the story showed us that even good people do bad things, for a lot of reasons obviously but mostly because of revenge or wanting the greater good.
The romance was a very little thing and after finishing the book, I'd rather not have it at all. It was so unnecessary for the plot, it wasn't an insta love but we sure as hell couldn't see any spark or connection between these two, besides being interested in the same spiritual thing.
This story wasn't happy but it sure as hell wasn't as frustrating as I thought it would be, don't misunderstand me I don't love when the characters suffer but in my opinion if they have to suffer, like when someone is captivated, the author should paint down their suffering more expressively. A lot of horrible and disgusting things happened to these people while they were held but for me all those things were just written down words.
The spiritual thing got a big emphasis which wasn't clear from the blurb and sadly it failed to fascinate me. My biggest problem was that it wasn't really explained, I usually don't like this kind of stuff but because of this I couldn't give a real chance to this subject. In the end the spirit or curse at the cave was supposed to be this grand subject of the whole story, a dramatic closure but for it was plainly boring and untold.
The Characters:
Unfortunately they weren't anything special to me but all of them had some definitely great qualities.
Lilliane's enthusiasm to the desert was pretty cute sympathetic and her compassion towards the Bedu people and all the poor was really deep and whole-hearted. I liked that she didn't collapsed after they survived and stood up for what she wanted even if it sounded crazy to her brother.
Lauren was one of the strongest characters of this book, I liked that she encouraged the others at the first period of their captivation, until something terrible happened she didn't give up, not for a moment.
Karim was an amazing character. In the past he was thought to always choose the good path but there was a time in his life when the barrier between good and bad thinned because of love but even then he never failed to be a good person.
The other secondary characters were really good as well, like Jamil, Nour or Nasser but again there was the issue of not explaining things properly. The main concept of the book is the captivation so it was important why did it happen and who's idea it was. Why the hell did Mohammed married Sue in the first place? And please if Lilliane could make Sue shut up, why couldn't he?
Favorite character: Lauren
Least favorite: Sue
After everything, I still don't know what to do with this book, it took a lot of time for me to read it and some parts (mainly in the beginning) were totally boring and unnecessary.
The story idea: 4/5
The realization of the story: 2/5
The characters: 3/5
The cover: 2/5
All in all: 2.75/5
http://reading-is-dreaming-with-open-...
An e-book copy was given to me by the author for an honest review.
It's such a hard thing for me to rate and review this book. On one hand it was nothing I've been looking for, after reading the blurb I was eager to read about a lot of action and the characters investigating and examining their surroundings and solving some mysteries without the help of the police. Unfortunately my idea of the book was far from the real thing.
The Story-line:
So, the story wasn't that bad but unlike other reviewers I don't think it was full of mysteries and shocking things, actually it was a bit boring, they got captivated after half of the book! I mean I can see how necessary the background story of Karim was, or how we have to see the background of the captivators, ergo the whole picture together but couldn't the author make it somehow more exciting because reading about Lilliane's and Lauren's journey from detail to detail, wasn't too fascinating. At all.
The political background was pretty well written, how all the villains of the story connected together was incredible. I liked that the story showed us that even good people do bad things, for a lot of reasons obviously but mostly because of revenge or wanting the greater good.
The romance was a very little thing and after finishing the book, I'd rather not have it at all. It was so unnecessary for the plot, it wasn't an insta love but we sure as hell couldn't see any spark or connection between these two, besides being interested in the same spiritual thing.
This story wasn't happy but it sure as hell wasn't as frustrating as I thought it would be, don't misunderstand me I don't love when the characters suffer but in my opinion if they have to suffer, like when someone is captivated, the author should paint down their suffering more expressively. A lot of horrible and disgusting things happened to these people while they were held but for me all those things were just written down words.
The spiritual thing got a big emphasis which wasn't clear from the blurb and sadly it failed to fascinate me. My biggest problem was that it wasn't really explained, I usually don't like this kind of stuff but because of this I couldn't give a real chance to this subject. In the end the spirit or curse at the cave was supposed to be this grand subject of the whole story, a dramatic closure but for it was plainly boring and untold.
The Characters:
Unfortunately they weren't anything special to me but all of them had some definitely great qualities.
Lilliane's enthusiasm to the desert was pretty cute sympathetic and her compassion towards the Bedu people and all the poor was really deep and whole-hearted. I liked that she didn't collapsed after they survived and stood up for what she wanted even if it sounded crazy to her brother.
Lauren was one of the strongest characters of this book, I liked that she encouraged the others at the first period of their captivation, until something terrible happened she didn't give up, not for a moment.
Karim was an amazing character. In the past he was thought to always choose the good path but there was a time in his life when the barrier between good and bad thinned because of love but even then he never failed to be a good person.
The other secondary characters were really good as well, like Jamil, Nour or Nasser but again there was the issue of not explaining things properly. The main concept of the book is the captivation so it was important why did it happen and who's idea it was. Why the hell did Mohammed married Sue in the first place? And please if Lilliane could make Sue shut up, why couldn't he?
Favorite character: Lauren
Least favorite: Sue
After everything, I still don't know what to do with this book, it took a lot of time for me to read it and some parts (mainly in the beginning) were totally boring and unnecessary.
The story idea: 4/5
The realization of the story: 2/5
The characters: 3/5
The cover: 2/5
All in all: 2.75/5
July 14, 2013
I loved writing this book. Hope you'll enjoy it too. I've rated it so that it shows up on my 'read' shelf and therefore on my website http://jaedancer.com/ Goodreads widget. No sock puppetry or spamming intended.
Lilliane has always been drawn by the desert — its emptiness, its eerie beauty and its people. When she takes the trip of a lifetime to a Bedu camp, she finds herself ensnared in a complex web of politics, blood feuds, terrorism and ancient spirits.
Karim is trying to find his path in the material world and to marry the girl of his dreams. But his soul cries out for the spiritual path of his fathers.
Lilliane’s and Karim’s stories collide in a forgotten, blood-soaked corner of Sinai. Brutalised, captive and bereft, they must find their own ways to survive.
A taut, unusual thriller set in the fascinating world of the modern Bedouin, Stillness Dancing shows us that the hardest paths can lead to the deepest wells.
Lilliane has always been drawn by the desert — its emptiness, its eerie beauty and its people. When she takes the trip of a lifetime to a Bedu camp, she finds herself ensnared in a complex web of politics, blood feuds, terrorism and ancient spirits.
Karim is trying to find his path in the material world and to marry the girl of his dreams. But his soul cries out for the spiritual path of his fathers.
Lilliane’s and Karim’s stories collide in a forgotten, blood-soaked corner of Sinai. Brutalised, captive and bereft, they must find their own ways to survive.
A taut, unusual thriller set in the fascinating world of the modern Bedouin, Stillness Dancing shows us that the hardest paths can lead to the deepest wells.
June 20, 2014
I received a copy of Stillness Dancing by Jae Erwin, from the Goodreads group called Shut Up and Read, in return for an honest review.
This was an OK book for me. Admittedly, once I realized what it was about, I had a feeling it wasn't going to appeal to me all that much, so much of it is just my own personal reading preferences and not the book itself. I couldn't really get into it until I had read about a third of it, and I think it had a lot to do with the book going back and forth between time periods.
I suspected the ending would turn out as it did, while at the same time it seems unfathomable to me as well. I understand Lilliane had spent her whole life searching for what she did find, but what she had to go through to get there is heartbreaking.
This was an OK book for me. Admittedly, once I realized what it was about, I had a feeling it wasn't going to appeal to me all that much, so much of it is just my own personal reading preferences and not the book itself. I couldn't really get into it until I had read about a third of it, and I think it had a lot to do with the book going back and forth between time periods.
I suspected the ending would turn out as it did, while at the same time it seems unfathomable to me as well. I understand Lilliane had spent her whole life searching for what she did find, but what she had to go through to get there is heartbreaking.
January 7, 2015
I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.
I've tried reading it for a week...and I'm the person that reads a book a day, sometimes more. The book is very hard to get into and has been slow to start. I'm only about 20% into the book but I'm not sure I'll ever finish.
The writing was decent although sometimes felt a little forced. So far the characters are not very likeable and I'm not sure if that's the author's intent or if it's because the book is hard for me to read.
At some point I may give this book another try but I really don't think it's for me.
I've tried reading it for a week...and I'm the person that reads a book a day, sometimes more. The book is very hard to get into and has been slow to start. I'm only about 20% into the book but I'm not sure I'll ever finish.
The writing was decent although sometimes felt a little forced. So far the characters are not very likeable and I'm not sure if that's the author's intent or if it's because the book is hard for me to read.
At some point I may give this book another try but I really don't think it's for me.
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