Financial abuse can also lead to physical and emotional abuse. In some cases, abusers may use money as a tool of control to coerce their partner into doing things they do not want to do or engaging in sexual activity against their will. This can lead to further trauma and harm to the victim. Ha habido partes que me gustaron mucho, especialmente al principio, el inicio de las luchas entre los Mushtak y los Sahin; algunos personajes, como el amor incondicional de Matta, la amistad perdurable de Josef; e historias concretas, puntuales, como la llegada al colegio cerca de la frontera con Jordania... Above St Paul’s Chapel, a body hangs in a basket over the city wall. The corpse is Major Mahdi Said, a high-ranking Muslim officer, and the secret service is soon involved. I will not have you without the darkness that hides within you. I will not let you have me without the madness that makes me. If our demons cannot dance, neither can we.” ― Nikita Gill The synopsis shows the reader that eventually a crime will take place but you have no idea with which character, and to be frank, as I read further into the book it could have been any of them! We see adultery, drug use, domestic abuse and the general hard work it takes to make life work. I found myself more and more embroiled in the story and eventually read the last quarter of it in one sitting.

Romeo and Juliet meets Arturo Pérez-Reverte and John le Carré in the dusty streets of Damascus… A rewarding and beautifully written, if blood-soaked, tale.’ Throughout the narrative we get glimpses of a hostage situation, but it's not until the climax that we find out who is the gunman and who is the hostage. The dark side of love teaches you the value of compromise and forgiveness. Your relationship requires work, your relationship requires effort. It’s not always kisses and chocolates, if you want to be blessed with true love, brace yourself for the dark side of love too.As the book starts all the couples; Izzy and James, Harriet and Wills and Stella and Jonny are all settled in life. Caroline, James' sister is single and feels on the edge of the group due to her status. The story unfolds and we see that none of the couples are quite as secure as first impressions suggested and secrets and lies test their relationships. Told in chapters covering the key times when the group are bought together such as New Year's Eve the reader is left with gaps, this device moves the story along nicely without becoming bogged down with the minutiae of daily life. A masterpiece! A marvel of prose that mixes myths, stories, tales, legends, and a wonderful love story… You will experience a Scheherazade in sparkling colours – a big love story, which does not spare us the sharp knives of grief.’ Vor rund 20 Jahren habe ich gerne und viel Schami gelesen, damals war ich noch ein unerfahrener Leser und diese Geschichten, die wie Wasserfälle dahinplätschern haben mich fasziniert. Irgendwann nervte mich aber, dass die Kernhandlung hinter Arabesken verschwand. Nun lange Jahre später also ein weiteres Werk von Schami, das allerdings seinem Umfang nach alle anderen sprengt. Dennoch bleibt hier Schami seine Stärken und Schwächen treu.

Schami's prose is simple and his outlook avowedly realist: beyond the occasional dream, he squeezes the whims of fate and fantasy from life itself. This realism makes 'The Dark Side Of Love' deeply affecting: haunting, heart-breaking and undeniably pertinent given the tragedy centred on Schami's beloved city today. Embracing a breathtaking array of characters, but managing to retain a clarity characteristic of so much translated Arabic fiction, Schami proceeds to fill in the gap of those three-score years, revealing why Farid and Rana's nascent love is doomed.The two may love each other fully because remember, love isn’t rational, yet not be able to live and deal with each other forever. So, that was it for our topic of The Dark Side Of Love. It’s not a nice feeling when you can’t be with someone you love, but if you are ready to put in an honest effort in your relationship, you can make it work. All those fairytales, all those stories, and movies you’ve heard and watched growing up, lied to you. Love is never enough because love is not rational. You hear that love is irrational all the time, yet you still hear the same people saying that love is enough to keep two people together. For the controller, financial abuse can lead to legal and financial consequences. In some cases, financial abuse can be considered a form of domestic violence and can lead to criminal charges. Additionally, financial abuse can impact their credit rating and financial future, especially if they have accumulated debt or engaged in fraudulent behaviour. Schami's work is in itself a love letter to a Damascus which in the course of his book survives the turmoil of occupation by the French, the terror of a never-ending series of brutal dictators and their Secret Service goons, short-lived union with Egypt and the birth of Israel. Yet so richly painted is Schami's picture of Damascene life that through all its turmoil and tragedies, the city never loses its allure.

Besides, I learned quite much about the history of this country and I believe Rafik Schami is a rather unbiased narrator - of course, most of his main characters are cristian Arabs, but there are Muslims and Jews as well and for me he did a good job in giving a voice to all the different parts of this complex society rather favouring a humanistic approach towards life. Especially women's lot is represented in a way that makes me admire his insight into the female point of view. Schami shows the beauty and the colours of Syria while at the same time pointing out the weaknesses of a patriarcal society in which tolerance and freedom of thought are not guaranteed. It's obvious that Schami's own biography has influenced this novel a lot and that parts of Farid's life is based on Schami's own experiences - like his main character, Schami had to leave Syria for political reasons and started a new life in Germany, writing this extraordinarily beautiful novel in a language not his native one which is quite a miracle to me. Y otras que o no me han gustado o me han aburrido. Se me ha hecho larguísimo el dificultoso amor de Rana y Farid, su estancia en la prisión, sus reuniones de partido... Y algunos personajes se me han atravesado, y no me refiero a los malos oficiales (como la familia de Rana), sino a los que se suponen "positivos" como Claire, que al principio me pareció interesante y luego se fue desdibujando hasta convertirse en una madre sufridora sin más... While at the beginning, I had some trouble getting into the story of the family feud between two Christian families in Syria which began at the end of the 19th century and keeps influencing generation after generation, the book and its characters started to grow on me after having ploughed through the first third of the novel. While I found the repetitiveness of violence and forbidden love a little bit tiring at first, it became one topic of many in the course of the book. I truly enjoy the Oriental way of telling a story - the narrator kind of meanders through urban Damascus and rural Mala, stopping here and there without obvious reason, thus creating a vivid image of the city, the country and its history. I've found this novel in a series dedicated to world's cities, and Damascus is definitely the hidden protagonist of the book. The prose is beautiful and evocative, and makes one smell the odours of the city, hear the chatter of the women and the noise of the children playing in the streets and the sheer vastness of the novel with its dozens of characters and sidelines reminds me of the labyrinth of Oriental medinas - definitely a book which makes one long for a journey to its settings. For me the main theme was finding oneself - who you are, what you want, and what you're willing to put up with to get there.

The heart is a different animal. A caged, lonely scavenger that feeds on its own wounds. Its scars never heal, because you can’t mend the very thing it needs to survive. So the wound continues to fester, until what’s left of the organ is eventually consumed by its own self-mutilation.” ― Keri Lake, Master of Salt & Bones Have I learned interesting facts of history? No! I have been told in a few short sentences about the conniving behavior and bribery of those in power, but there is no continuity to the historical facts. There is little substance to show me how the people were affected by life under these leaders. They merely appear and disappear. I appreciate the author's hard work and all of what he went through to get the information he needed, and his obvious love and yearning for Damascus, but at the end of the day, I was disappointed with this novel, I came so close so many times to just quit it, but decided to get closure and finish it.

They may be poor calls of judgment; lies we told, or things we said. When it comes to love, our past haunts us. We move from relationship to relationship, hauling all that baggage we managed to accumulate in our previous relationship.It is important to note that financial abuse is a form of domestic violence and can have serious consequences for both the victim and the abuser. Victims of financial abuse may suffer from anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues as a result of the abuse. They may also struggle to rebuild their financial independence and regain control over their lives. This is why relationships require compromise. You’re not going to love everything about the person you are with, but you love enough about him or her to live with the things you don’t love. Not all people are willing to, or even able to, compromise. That is why sometimes it just doesn’t work out, regardless of what our emotions tell us. When I say I love you more