Edition Read: Audible audiobook edition
Started: January 10, 2021
Finished: January 11, 2021
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
I started writing this review at around the halfway point of the book, because I needed to start getting my thoughts out before I forgot.
And I doubt that my opinions on the book would change after finishing the last four and a half hours of it.
The main complaint is the way the book is written. I've never enjoyed stories that changed the POV character every chapter, because that alone can break my focus, even if we're just looking at the same scene from two different view points. However, this is coupled with the book changing from third person omniscient to first person and I think the first person sections are written in the (book's) past and the third person sections are written in the (book's) present (as, I think those scenes are set in the 1970s/1980s, but it jumps around so much I couldn't even tell.) that I'm totally lost and it just hit me, approximately 50% into the story, that the first person narrator is the husband of one of the sisters. It probably makes more sense in the original Arabic and there were things lost in the translation to English, and the audiobook narrator made a good attempt at trying to help make sense of it (changing her vocal register during the first person chapters, for starters) but it was a futile attempt.
I think this book would have worked better pitched as a short story collection, or as two separate books in a series: one with the first person parts, and one with the third person parts. I was far more interested in knowing more about Mayya, Asma, and Khawla anyway.
Started: January 10, 2021
Finished: January 11, 2021
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
I started writing this review at around the halfway point of the book, because I needed to start getting my thoughts out before I forgot.
And I doubt that my opinions on the book would change after finishing the last four and a half hours of it.
The main complaint is the way the book is written. I've never enjoyed stories that changed the POV character every chapter, because that alone can break my focus, even if we're just looking at the same scene from two different view points. However, this is coupled with the book changing from third person omniscient to first person and I think the first person sections are written in the (book's) past and the third person sections are written in the (book's) present (as, I think those scenes are set in the 1970s/1980s, but it jumps around so much I couldn't even tell.) that I'm totally lost and it just hit me, approximately 50% into the story, that the first person narrator is the husband of one of the sisters. It probably makes more sense in the original Arabic and there were things lost in the translation to English, and the audiobook narrator made a good attempt at trying to help make sense of it (changing her vocal register during the first person chapters, for starters) but it was a futile attempt.
I think this book would have worked better pitched as a short story collection, or as two separate books in a series: one with the first person parts, and one with the third person parts. I was far more interested in knowing more about Mayya, Asma, and Khawla anyway.