Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

the first half was ok, kinda weird and confusing? but the latter half omg *chef's kiss* I loved the introspection of the two characters, the complex feelings tied to their cultural gap and how much you're inclined to excuse things bc it's your motherland... so many interesting discussions. the last part caught me off guard lol but it was interesting

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bookishbrenbren's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ugh this was so good. I binge read the last 80% of it 😂 it was engrossing and there are also enough plot points to keep you turning the page.

I have so much to say but I'm still working through my thoughts! I will just say I looooooved the character of the protagonist and the lens of the author/narrator/reader. I loved how much the character underscores the hypocrisy of the west, of classism, of wealth. And the irony of judging non-American peoples with the lens of American morality and politics. I also loved the way she played with the idea of individual guilt and individual responsibility for restitution or reparation. Ugh there's just so much to dive into.

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danireadsthings's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I loved this book for what it was, what it did, and how it did it. I always find it hard to say I enjoyed a book as heavy, dark, and suffocating as this - but I was enraptured from page one. No matter how it twisted up my insides, no matter how heavy, I couldn’t look away.

I listened to this on audio (narrated, in part, by the author), which I know gave me a vastly different experience since I didn't have to labor through block text, in-line italicized dialogue, and other stylistic experimentation. I also went into this book with absolutely zero expectations or context for the genre. It was a wild step outside of my usual reading.

Part 1 and 2 - I loved the first two parts for the ways they contrasted how the characters’ moved through the world and the different motivations and interpretations of the same moments. We could see the animosity between them before the primary narrator even reflected on it herself. The narration picked up speed and intensity in Part two. Some of the violent imagery (check TWs) was hard to listen to, but it all ramped up to a climactic end.

Part 3 - I knew it was going to be something dramatic, from previous reviews I’d read, but was still a doozy. I’ll spoiler from here.

At first I rolled my eyes at its navel-gazing, but as the dialogue went round and round, the analysis and opinions pinging off one another, fueling each other to fever pitch, then deflating momentarily just to ramp up once again, I found myself appreciating it for what it was. The commentary, while maybe trite for some, offered a perspective on how, no matter our best intentions, our intellect, and social awareness…no matter how hard we try to see the world through multiple lenses, we will always have to turn a blind eye to someone, some issue or group, in protection of another. I thought this was most powerfully displayed in the moment one girl questioning the narrative the story presented about rape effectively silenced a classmate who wanted to explore what the story said about class, power, and privilege. Its navel-gazing - so easily dismissed at first - was what sent me across the house to discuss the story at length with my spouse (who, as an aside, overheard me listening to the story midway and asked "Does this couple even like each other?"). It’s what made me sit and think back on the entire story prior and ask myself the same questions the students were asking. And then question - does that change my view of the story at all?

I would recommend this book, with the caveat that the end may infuriate you. Or it may make the story that much more powerful. And it seems like there’s very little in-between.

This book constantly made me question who I sympathized with and why at any given moment. It was rife with commentary on class, culture, performative activism, guilt, belonging, cultural identity, misogyny, male aggression, how we use others, and what it means to be a victim. And most of all, it is the type of story that sticks in your gut and pulls you back to consider it (for better or for worse) long after it's done.

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froggoz13's review

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emotional tense

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I have so many questions and after reading the third part I am also very skeptical of the narrative of the book and have even more questions now. However, I really do like this and

like how open ended the book feels, even though we do know what happens at the end.

I also really love the experimental writing style and it ads to the uncertainty and confusion I feel in the story. It was hard to put the book down. I stayed very invested in the story throughout the whole book.

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markwillnevercry's review against another edition

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3.75

I read this book almost right after finishing “The Yacoubian Building” by Alaa Al Aswany for school, so hey, I guess I am on an Egyptian streak now.

As you can already see, I was not too happy with the book, seeing that it is not even touching a four, but I still find it a pretty good read. I wrote down stuff from the book that made me want to hold on to it and it really mattered to me, I even recommended it to my boyfriend, so I guess at some moment I will add his opinion too.

Books can be well written and still be not great to you as a reader, because that is how emotions and how reading works, just because wine is great, doesn’t mean that you like it, and that is very much the way I feel about this book. I think it was well written, changes in voice did not matter to me, because I am dyslexic and was listening to an audiobook the whole time 😎, but I get how people get confused about it. I am hurt and sad about the way abuse is handled, because it is an emotional topic for me and at some points I felt uncomfortable reading opinions that sounded rather aggressive towards people who get hurt. This is not gonna be your healing book, this is gonna be your “do not tell me how to grief” book.

Am never rereading it tho, like, come on, there is a reason why you borrow books from library instead of buying them sometimes.

Book notes:

“He said my name, searched my face the way strangers study the daughters of a niqab-wearing woman, noting the texture of their hair, the pucker of their mouths, aging the children’s faces in their minds, searching for the mother’s beauty.”

“The more they discover, the more offended they are. You live in America? Have American passport? Do you know what people here would give for an American passport? We are all trying to leave and you have the option to be there but instead - why are you here?”

“He cleared his throat as though fatherhood had just been declared carcinogenic and he wanted nothing to do with it: he was doing a cleanse, he was detoxing, he had given up gluten and dairy and daughters.”

Her mum did so much, it is kinda crazy.

Oh to be Sami.

“It’s a city dialed up to its extreme.”

“How much is this today?”

I lowkey lost all appreciation for the book, when the sex scene showed up.

Sami :/

I do not know if I can live through all of this objectifying.

It is a pretty common thing for the youth to collect the bottles of alcohol? Not only in the Egypt or countries, who do not approve of alcohol.

The American is like, so judgmental, even tho she is talking about how she stands up for other people.

I do not know how I feel about the whole talk of how the boy from Shobrakheit’s Arabic is, when the whole book is written in English, so it only appears like it on English. It just feels weird.

“I’m learning slowly that having money and the option to leave frays any claim I have to this place.”

Boy from Shobrakheit :/

She said no, she said no multiple times, I swear to fucking god, I just want a book with no rape.

“I love when she cries” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

“You can’t just discard willy-nilly things that once belonged to you, even if you’ve outgrown them.”

“(...) he’s at least as spoiled as he is damaged”

“After years of claiming Arabness as an excuse for what I am - hairy, hard-boned and dirt-skinned, sensual, impulsive, superstitious, nostalgic, full of body-shame and estrangement - I feel I’m earning it at last.” through abuse.

The whole part about making photos and it having consequences lowkey reminds about Umurangi Generation.

He doesn’t love her. You don’t love her.

Title: eeee, 45%?

“You are no longer safeness, I tell him. I miss myself.”

He is actively wishing a sexual assault on her?

The American girl is coming up with too much stuff, no one cares about you trying to look different? Okay, this just kept continuing and this is just a relic of “oh my god, what do we do with the cancel culture?” nothing, we do nothing, we just keep living.

“Those denied asylum often find other ways not to return. They slip like rats into the underground and are never seen again.” :/

Gurl, u did nothing to make him the way he is now, it is just him.

That is a wild way to deal with a person running at you?

The lamp shading is crazy.

I swear to god, that I heard the vagina full of teeth somewhere before, I think it was in a horror movie sum up.

The amount of eye rolling that I do because of the Instructor.

I will hit the next person who says, that a way survivor talks about their trauma should be adjusted to #metoo. No hate to the movement, hate to people who do not understand what trauma is and are just like: “Yeah, I get that you struggled, but you do not 100% fit into my definition of what you griefing should look like, so you better change that.”

The situation above just keeps getting worse.

Why the fuck does everyone just let Tim get abused? This is just not a great space to be, if you are dealing with trauma and I assume that this is what they are all here for.

Candice, go to actual fucking therapy. The books are not written for the reader, specifically memoirs such as this. If you needed the closure from it so much, you should have seeked it somewhere else, not in someone else’s life.

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susannn_'s review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

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raisinreads's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense

4.0

I would like to rate this as if I had not read the last section of the book, but alas, the last section of the book was included so.. besides the last section I thought the writing was interesting and beautiful, poignant at points

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