Overview
Suleika Jaouad beautifully tells her stories and the stories of others in her memoir, “Between Two Kingdoms.” When I first picked up this book I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I saw a bright yellow van on the front, and thought I might be in for a tale of van life and an adventure, something I was craving, while that was there, the book challenged me to look into myself and reflect.

Jaouad felt as if she was “Between Two Kingdoms,” she was trapped between the well and the sick, she was stuck between being hopeful and preparing for the worst, in this memoir Jaouad tells a story full of honesty and explains what her life was like when she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. She explains how, “Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers.”

Jaoud’s Journey
“Between Two Kingdoms” being the first memoir I have read has set high expectations for the next. Jaouad writes in a way that in moments feels fictional, yet the emotions she conveys leave no doubt that she must have experienced them herself. She doesn’t try to paint herself as a hero and is vulnerable when describing how she reacted and the thoughts she had.

Jaouad was able to tell her story by filing through journals, medical records, and interviews she held with others who are highlighted in the memoir. While a large piece of the memoir focuses on Jaouad and her experience fighting the illness, constructing relationships, and piecing together what she wants from life, another aspect, and what stuck out to me the most is how Jaouad also used her talent to meet and hear others stories.

Originally with a vision to be a foreign correspondent in North Africa, Jaouad was forced to pause that adventure in favor of a hospital bed, and after a year of moving between her parent’s house and the hospital she was done hiding, “I wanted to understand what had happened to me, to excavate its meaning on my own terms. I wanted the last word to be mine,” Jaouad said.

Jaouad created a blog to be a platform for young adults with cancer. Her first post consisted of some of her writing from a one hundred day project she did where she wrote every day. Her college journalism professor shared it to colleagues and the next day she was featured on The Huffington Post.

This exposed Jaouad stories to others, and in return people began to tell her theirs. A death row convict, Lil’ GQ wrote to her that he could relate because they were both waiting for death to make its move. Within little time Jaouad was writing a weekly column for the New York Times. Her illness was still apparent every day, but she worked till exhaustion.

Themes
Jaouad forces readers to consider what they are living for and what they are waiting for. She challenges them to understand what isolation feels like, and the tension that can be created when one individual needs more care than the other.

She also encourages readers to open their hearts and connect with the people around them. As she did when she went on a roadtrip to meet some of the people that wrote to her in response to her column while she was trying to cross the boundary into the land of the living.

One of the people Jaouad traveled to visit was Katherine, who wrote to her after her son’s suicide. Katherine and her family have a belief that, “The power of a story is to heal and to sustain. And if we are brave enough to tell our own story, we realize we’re not alone, again, and again.”

While Jaouad was writing her story weekly, opening her arms to the public, the public responded with their own. Between Two Kingdoms demonstrates the power of one story and how the reaction can cause connection, and open the doors to many more tales.

Suleika Jaouad may not have gone on an adventure until she was able to recover but as readers take in her tale they are on an adventure from the start. They are brought in to understand Jaouad and others as much as they are prompted to understand themselves.

I believe that at least once in everyone’s life they should read this memoir not only to learn of Jaouad’s powerful story but the story of others featured in the memoir. Readers may be able to see themselves or learn how to open their minds to others. “Between Two Kingdoms” is nothing short of a 5 out of 5.