Crushed Roses, through a series of prose poem stories, chronicles the journey of a powerful woman searching for meaning in the struggles of her life.

Love and heartbreak. For artist and poet Zainab Ali, these two things always seem to go hand in hand. It all started with a 'ghost', the pull of a forbidden romance. Zainab's life was never the same again. As the years pass, echoes of the past, hardship and joy, resound.

The shades of life turn out very differently than Zainab expected. To find her next path, she must first rebuild herself and decide where to place her trust.

This was just such a pleasure to read. A story told through prose poems. The story of a woman searching for meaning. A woman suffering heartbreak, looking for love, but ultimately finding a path through all the obstacles that life threw at her. In a sense, I suppose it’s not an original premise for a story. But what is original is the structure and style of this book which I thought rendered it quite unique.
It’s full of images and metaphor that should delight the poetry lovers, and it has a story which should delight the fiction lovers! Some original descriptions - the attractive Wale Badmus described thus;

‘Either greedy

at the table of body parts

or he was God’s favourite being.’

And there are poems within the poem if you will. Verses that would stand on their own outside of this narrative including the titular Crushed Roses which is quite beautiful.

‘The beautiful things in life are best left untouched.

For when touched, irreversible complications may arise,

which washes away a savour.’

Because it is a fiction, it therefore has a plot, and I do not wish to divulge the details of the plot suffice to say that it’s a fairly simple one, but it’s the thoughts and feelings contained within that give the book its substance and its meaning.

What I also found quite exciting was that when I reached the end of the book there was a link to the trailer for a film of the story. As I was reading I felt the work had a very visual feel to it so this was like a validation of that thought.

https://www.ibiereaddey.com/films ( )

Special book, not difficult to understand. The text is like clouds of thoughts. It's a mixture of prose and poetry. The beginning makes you want to read what happened to the writer and why she wants to tell her story. But I wasn't captured very long. A lot of words, but what do I take away from it, what do I learn? I only like books that educate me, that make me wiser. I can't find this here. It's like looking at an impressionist painting. Nice on the surface, a really good try but the story in itself is not so interesting to me, although one can feel some love. Love for the colour of the words.
The cover shows poppies, no roses.