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A review by luanagomes
The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
There is not much I can say about this book other than it felt like clickbait.
I normally stay away from hyped books and choose carefully my reads based on reviews, but somehow I fell for this one, still not sure how.
Look, the ideas are there, and they are not bad. They were just poorly executed.
The marketing around this book says it is "A smart satirical story raises timely questions about privilege and appropriation ", but it is not like that at all. Yes, the discussions on appropriation and privilege are present, but are superficial. There is no satire in it; it is not a thriller either, as a lot of reviewers said.
For me, it was a mediocre book, half literary fiction, half mystery, and it did not succeed in neither.
The translation aspect /discussion was very unrealistic at parts ( my opinion as a professional translator) ; the character study was all over the place - too many themes, very little depth; story was too patchy. Those who are of pakistani-muslim descent also pointed out there are some issues on this area as well, so if you are interested in this read for the representation, better check those reviews for clarification.
As I was in this book for the mystery, imagine my disappointment when the so-called "Centre", which should the focal point of the story, gets abandoned by the second half of the book, after the secret of its mysterious process of "total language immersion for 10 days and fluency guaranteed" is found by the protagonist. The Centre itself takes about 1/4 of the book, or even less, and this plot has one too many flaws-holes.
I enjoyed that the main character is very unlikable and unreliable, but nothing more than that. All the drama she brought in did nothing to further the plot, and this personal drama takes up most of the book, unfortunately.
Cannot recommend this one on good faith, sorry !
I normally stay away from hyped books and choose carefully my reads based on reviews, but somehow I fell for this one, still not sure how.
Look, the ideas are there, and they are not bad. They were just poorly executed.
The marketing around this book says it is "A smart satirical story raises timely questions about privilege and appropriation ", but it is not like that at all. Yes, the discussions on appropriation and privilege are present, but are superficial. There is no satire in it; it is not a thriller either, as a lot of reviewers said.
For me, it was a mediocre book, half literary fiction, half mystery, and it did not succeed in neither.
The translation aspect /discussion was very unrealistic at parts ( my opinion as a professional translator) ; the character study was all over the place - too many themes, very little depth; story was too patchy. Those who are of pakistani-muslim descent also pointed out there are some issues on this area as well, so if you are interested in this read for the representation, better check those reviews for clarification.
As I was in this book for the mystery, imagine my disappointment when the so-called "Centre", which should the focal point of the story, gets abandoned by the second half of the book, after the secret of its mysterious process of "total language immersion for 10 days and fluency guaranteed" is found by the protagonist. The Centre itself takes about 1/4 of the book, or even less, and this plot has one too many flaws-holes.
I enjoyed that the main character is very unlikable and unreliable, but nothing more than that. All the drama she brought in did nothing to further the plot, and this personal drama takes up most of the book, unfortunately.
Cannot recommend this one on good faith, sorry !