Review buku lagi 🙂 Letters to God adalah buku fiksyen daripada Norhafsah Hamid. To be honest, aku ada 4 buku beliau, ada yang sudah bertahun aku beli tapi masih tidak baca lagi. Dan buku Letters to God adalah buku pertama yang aku baca daripada karya beliau.
Aku tertarik untuk baca buku ni selepas nampak ramai bookstagram yang baca. Hihi. Dorang semua kata best maka aku pun terjebak sekali. Kadang-kadang bahan bacaan orang lain turut mempengaruhi my next book to read 🙂 Pengaruh rakan tidak sebaya cuma sekepala bab buku 😀
Title: Letters to God
Author: Norhafsah Hamid
Pages: 240
Publisher: Iman Publication
Publication Date: April 2018 (First Edition)
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult
SYNOPSIS
Letters to God is about a journey of a young girl named Sarah in trying to find her footing in a challenging world. An introvert by nature, Sarah struggles to balance her work, life and her spiritual longing while trying to adapt to her new surroundings. She found friendship along the way and also experienced hostility and heartache. Not knowing who to turn to, she decided to rant and rave to her Creator.
This is a story of how a young girl, who made a decision to write letters to God, telling Him of all her worries, and pain. She believes that one can talk to God at any time, any place, even outside prayers.
Did Sarah find solace?
Or did she continue to be lost?
REVIEW
This book is easy read, written in simple English and I do not need to look at dictionary at all. Total reading time untuk buku ini hanya lebih kurang dua jam saja. Sekejap je kan? Satu-satunya buku English yang tidak menyebabkan aku jeda membaca untuk tengok maksud certain word dalam kamus.
Reading this book makes me feel like reading someone’s diary. A story about Sarah, an introvert who continues to study abroad. She made decision to write letters to God, telling Him about all her worries and pain. Kira macam Sarah yakin yang lebih baik dia bercakap dengan Allah through her letters rather than talks to people. Orang lain akan judge dia dan membuatkan Sarah tidak selesa. Allah don’t judge her and Allah also knows everything.
What I loved the most about this book is the concept of write letters to Allah to share your worries, grateful and everything. Lebih dekatkan diri dengan Allah dengan cara menulis pula. This concept is really great and open my eyes that we can talk to Allah at any time and reminds me that Allah is always with us. When you feel nobody wants to listen to you, write letter to Allah is a good approach to soothe your feeling. I started writing letters to Allah on my journal app on my phone but not regularly 😎 Anyway, thank you author for introducing this beautiful concept.
Besides of simple language used by the author, I also liked quote and verse from Quran and Hadith at every end of chapter.
Plot cerita agak mendatar. I don’t really fancy Sarah though. Ada beberapa babak yang membuatkan aku rasa Sarah anggap diri dia saja yang teraniaya, diri dia saja yang betul, diri dia saja yang bagus dalam semua perkara. Kenapa Sarah tidak pernah salahkan dirinya atas khabar angin yang ada di kampus? Kita pun sepatutnya mengelakkan diri daripada melakukan sesuatu perkara yang boleh mendatangkan fitnah. Bukan bila difitnah, rasa diri seorang je teraniaya. Haa.
Positive side of Sarah adalah dia sedar apa yang dia lakukan itu adalah salah selepas beberapa ketika. Barulah teringat apa yang orang pesan belaka. At this time, I relate myself to Sarah a lot. Hihi. Aku ni sebenarnya jenis cepat melenting, haha, tapi kejap je dah cool balik bila berfikir dengan wajar. Sebab tu aku selalu ingatkan diri bahawa jangan pegang phone ketika sedang marah/sakit hati. Akan intend untuk menulis sesuatu di media sosial yang bakal dikesali selepas cool down 😀
I loved Sarah’s relationship with her mixed bunch of friends. They are really understands each other culture, religion and respect the differences. Good to know that Sarah is placed among her good friends. And one more, I just know that Reading University is really exist!! Haha. Serius lah, masa baca buku ni, aku macam tertanya-tanya juga ada ke Reading University. Ada lahhh!! Comelnya nama universiti. Rasa nak pergi sanalah melawat Reading. Hihi.
Furthermore, I loved how Sarah describes her university, the university’s library and how she survived there. A good explanation and some ideas for me in how to live abroad.
As usual, my favourite quotes from this book as below
RATING AND RECOMMENDATION
Rating: 3/5
As mentioned on a page before Prologue, this book is dedicated to all the strong girls and women around the world. It also tells the readers about the reality of life and how Allah is always with us. Sometimes when we feel down, we must remember that Allah is always there. We only need to communicate with Allah in any way such as write letters, a beautiful concept introduced in this book.
Even though I was not really fancy Sarah and the storyline is quite flat, this book still has a special place in my heart. I loved author’s writing with simple English and how she described Islam in a simple way. I may have put high expectations on this book. I want more!!
I would strongly recommend this book for young adult readers.
Every day is a good day.. InshaAllah…
