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jadekelly90's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
ruta_crnoja's review
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
tobbled's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
Beautiful book, Alharthi’s writing style is so simple and accessible yet creates this gorgeous relationship between words. Unfortunately just didn’t do too much for me.
Beautiful book, Alharthi’s writing style is so simple and accessible yet creates this gorgeous relationship between words. Unfortunately just didn’t do too much for me.
mjoiner11's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
upward_not_northward's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
_fareedah's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Hard to get into at first, the tide changes as we learn more about Bint Aamir who Zahour considers a grandmother. While the book followed Zahour, it was easier to fall in love with Horseman's girl whose father deprived her of marriage due to her loss of an eye, who despite that tried to make other forms of happiness for herself.
Zahour's concerns feel minimal only until you realise that she and Bint Aamir share large struggles. They both have made sharp turns a necessity for themselves, they both struggle with their choices and while they might think it best, it still makes them sad. This book explores loneliness and alienation not only with its characterisation but with its narrative choices.
The main character tells us much about this woman (bint Aamir) with whom she shared no particular closeness by filling in what she has heard and cast the sun against the interactions they have had. It feels at once guilt-driven and coloured by yearning– for something, anything, someone. When her friend gets into a muta marriage, she does the same to her friend's partner as if projecting her need to be seen against anyone who possesses any kind of mystery and then was good to her.
Z is a character I understood but liking feels too large a word to use. This book was a pleasant experience nonetheless.
Zahour's concerns feel minimal only until you realise that she and Bint Aamir share large struggles. They both have made sharp turns a necessity for themselves, they both struggle with their choices and while they might think it best, it still makes them sad. This book explores loneliness and alienation not only with its characterisation but with its narrative choices.
The main character tells us much about this woman (bint Aamir) with whom she shared no particular closeness by filling in what she has heard and cast the sun against the interactions they have had. It feels at once guilt-driven and coloured by yearning– for something, anything, someone. When her friend gets into a muta marriage, she does the same to her friend's partner as if projecting her need to be seen against anyone who possesses any kind of mystery and then was good to her.
Z is a character I understood but liking feels too large a word to use. This book was a pleasant experience nonetheless.
peripetia's review
3.0
I just could not bring myself to care about this book. This can be because the audiobook narrator's delivery was so flat that it made the protagonist like she has no personality or emotions. I often got quite distracted because I was so bored and I probably missed some important stuff, but again, could not bring myself to care.
I also have a problem with the class/privilege theme but that's a whole other thing that I'm not going to get into.
I also have a problem with the class/privilege theme but that's a whole other thing that I'm not going to get into.
archytas's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
This is a ethereal novel, almost airy in its slim connections to plot or conventional structure, while being rich in evocative feeling. We are brought with little preparation into the world of Zuhour, who is studying in Britain while reeling from a grief she can't process at the death of her grandmother. As it so often is, the grief is spooled with a growing sense of dislocation for Zuhour, as she tries to make sense of why she is in England, and the eternal question of what she wants.
"Her life was like a paper kite. She would lift her head to watch as it went bobbing by, the breeze taking it farther and farther away. In the beginning, she believed that she had a firm hold on the cord that tethered that kite, and that she could control its movements. But the kite didn’t respond to her tugs. It flew away, eluding the pull of that thin and frail thread, which was really no more than an imaginary line. It was a kite far in the distance, hovering, circling, now ramming into a lamppost, now getting caught on an antenna, and finally, likely to be ripped to tatters as it chafed against a length of barbed wire. Or it might careen back to earth, but then it would surely plunge straight into the dirt."
Zuhour slowly thinks through her family history, trying to find meaning in understanding her grandmother's life and its relation to her own, as she also becomes more bound up in the lives of her friends around her. Serious identity issues collide or synthesise, with Alharthi exploring class, race, gender, caste, colonialism and imperialism along the way. She is most succesful at evoking the often unmoored worlds of the expat students, trying to establish their own sense of culture alongside their sense of self.
Her prose can be a lot (see the above quote), but also packs a punch in taut sentences that leaven the dreamlike quality of the overall novel: "The two of them led lives in which imagination occupied a very narrow margin."
Although I didn't find this a stunning read like Alkarthi's Celestial Bodies, it was consistently engrossing and enjoyable.
"Her life was like a paper kite. She would lift her head to watch as it went bobbing by, the breeze taking it farther and farther away. In the beginning, she believed that she had a firm hold on the cord that tethered that kite, and that she could control its movements. But the kite didn’t respond to her tugs. It flew away, eluding the pull of that thin and frail thread, which was really no more than an imaginary line. It was a kite far in the distance, hovering, circling, now ramming into a lamppost, now getting caught on an antenna, and finally, likely to be ripped to tatters as it chafed against a length of barbed wire. Or it might careen back to earth, but then it would surely plunge straight into the dirt."
Zuhour slowly thinks through her family history, trying to find meaning in understanding her grandmother's life and its relation to her own, as she also becomes more bound up in the lives of her friends around her. Serious identity issues collide or synthesise, with Alharthi exploring class, race, gender, caste, colonialism and imperialism along the way. She is most succesful at evoking the often unmoored worlds of the expat students, trying to establish their own sense of culture alongside their sense of self.
Her prose can be a lot (see the above quote), but also packs a punch in taut sentences that leaven the dreamlike quality of the overall novel: "The two of them led lives in which imagination occupied a very narrow margin."
Although I didn't find this a stunning read like Alkarthi's Celestial Bodies, it was consistently engrossing and enjoyable.
victoriafrost1991's review
4.0
It was different from what I normally read. The author brings a discussion on mental health, the feeling of isolation and the constant memory of one's past that it's heart breaking and at times relatable. I didn't get the protagonist relationship with Kuhl and her secret husband. The dynamic threw me off and I wasn't certain in what to make of it.