"In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet-- sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors-- doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. [This book] follows the couple as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are."--From regular print book.
One minute it’s hyper-surreal and dreamlike, the next it’s grounded with a detail so familiar it’s eerie. Rooms aren’t lit by stars or windows, they’re lit by touchscreens and billboards. The details that are so familiar they don’t often find their way into books.
It’s more like a fable than a novel, with a floating detachment and more telling than showing. But I think that worked. And the touch of magical realism was unexpected, but fitting (once I caught on). I’ll be interested to know if this sticks with me a year from now. That’s the drawback— since the characters developed through short vignettes, I’m not sure it will.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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13 September, 2017:
Finished reading
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13 September, 2017:
Reviewed