I’m unsure how I feel about this read. Keeping hold of any modern sensibilities about feminism when reading this will just leave you appalled and perhaps it is unfair to overlay any of those viewpoints when reading a novel based in a middle class Hanbali household set in 1917 Cairo. Letting those go, I could enjoy the book a lot more. I can only imagine how beautiful the prose would be in its original Arabic when it is so pretty in parts in English. I like that it’s a story crafted around a single family unit and their lives. The backdrop of the World War and colonizing powers for much of the book is just that, the backdrop (until it takes more of the center stage towards the end) and the lives of the family move along with sibling bickering, marriages, divorces, etc. I also enjoyed the quick pace at which the story moved once you’re about 25% in. It forces you to keep picking up the book. I also appreciate that the book doesn’t become about all the atrocities and social ills which may have existed in that society would make this a heavy read. Having said that, Yasin’s behavior with the maids is atrocious. Okay, I’m hungry, wrap this up. Pros: told from a non-judgmental Egyptian point. Cons: women are objects.

I’ll rate later.