När jag såg den här boken i mitt flöde så tyckte jag att den lät väldigt intressant. En av anledningarna var, givetvis, att den är från Afrika. Förmodligen läste jag lite slarvigt vad den skulle handla om, för detta var inte alls den bok jag hade förväntat mig. Men det gjorde inte så mycket. Läs mer på min blogg

The second part of this book was slow and I found it hard to finish. Ultimately, it was a mediocre book by an otherwise excellent author. I highly recommend Farah's other books, he has been tipped as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature with good reason and deserves to be more widely read.

I thought this would be a fascinating story and give me a perspective on cultures I know very little about. And, in a way, I was half right. The story started off interesting, but it went... nowhere. The second half of the story lacked any real development in the story arc.

Aar seems like the most interesting character, his fate is a shame, though it was well written and rather interesting. Valerie is such an unlikeable character, credit to Farah's writing for that, and it continued to annoy me how Bella would entertain her, despite how rude and utterly disrespectful Valerie continued to be. And perhaps this is a cultural thing I don't understand, but Dahaba asking Valerie if she's read much gay literature seems to be too much (Bella and Salif try to signal her to stop), but Valerie can ask Bella if she was subjected to genital mutilation? What?

I'll try something else by Farah, but I'm just disappointed how the whole plot of this book was "will the shitty mother who abandoned her children get custody?" and it was just... flat. But the cover is beautiful, it's what drew me to the book.

Farrah writes beautifully and does an impressive job of writing female protagonists. Although I personally know little of Somali culture, I liked his portrayal of Somali people (even in exile), describing them as individuals, yet also sharing proverbs and customs. Where this novel failed, I think, is in his creation of several unpleasant main characters, including the protagonist, Bella. The novel also lacked a climactic conflict with a satisfying conclusion; instead, the conflict was petty, constant, and ended only when the annoying mother character finished her visit and left.

I found this engaging and easy to read. It was really moving at the start but got somehow more distanced as we moved from Aar's pov to Bella's. The set up was good, with 4 very different women with very different agendas finding themselves needing to navigate and negotiate with each other in the wake of a loved one's death.

I enjoyed reading this book, at times I enjoyed reading it a lot. I found nearly all the characters to be complex and likeable. Though it had some flaws.

I found the description of Bella's approach to her love life not very believable, and the scene with one of her lovers painted her in a rather unattractive light- I wondered if Farah was trying to point out that she could be hypocritical, though nothing else in the book pointed to that. So Bella was the weakest character for me, which is too bad since she was the main character.

There were a few scenes in this book that seemed superfluous and were not even interesting to read or well written. So it's not a tightly written or edited book.

I would only recommend this book to people who like to read a lot of African novelists. Otherwise I would be concerned that it might give a bad impression of African fiction, and that's not fair. There are a lot of better books out there. This one is fine for what it is. One thing I really appreciated was learning a bit about Somali culture, which I know little about. And the challenges gay people face in different cultures.

It only skirts deep political issues. It's all very surface and fluffy. If it hadn't tried to be more than it is, which is a story about a family. I might have been more open its place in fiction. Don't waste your time.

The story started off interesting but once Bella came into the story line it fell flat for me. Nothing compelling or catchy just blah blah blah.