Khaled Hosseini was inspired to write Sea Prayer after seeing the photo of the corpse of 3 year old Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015; he was one of thousands of refugees who died fleeing the war in Syria.
Sea Prayer is a short all-ages book which takes the form of a father writing a letter to his son describing idyllic life in Homs, Syria, before the conflict and then the nightmare it became after.
I’m sure nobody reading this will interpret my low rating in this way but, to anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m not at all indifferent or uncaring about the plight of refugees or human suffering in general – this review is purely a reflection of my reading experience and nothing else. And, going by that alone, Sea Prayer is a very slight and unimpressive book. Sorry my dudes, gotta keeps it real!
There’s barely any story, no characters, Hosseini’s writing is unengaging, vague, pseudo-poetic, and manipulatively sentimental, and the whole thing is entirely unmemorable. I can’t imagine this appealing to any kid, let alone them enjoying reading this, either. Dan Williams’ painted art is lovely and evocative but that’s about the only real standout aspect of Sea Prayer.
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