Reviews

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi

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kelli_jean_'s review

challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I found this book to be fascinating. It follows the normal every day lives of a few families who live in the village of Al-Awafi, Omar as they navigate the changing cultural norms that occur in Oman in the middle and late 20th century. It was so interesting to see how their lives weave together even as their ways of coping with things varies wildly. However, they are family or kin and therefore must hang together to survive. A beautiful depiction of a resilient community in the midst of change grappling with how best to live.

My one criticism was that the ending didn’t feel like an end. I wondered if I was somehow missing part of the book.

mollyjones's review against another edition

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3.0

Before reading this book I knew very little about the culture or people of Oman, so in this sense it was a very interesting read; it was amazing at portraying the ideas and culture of the characters, the descriptions were rich and set the scene perfectly. My only problem is there were a lot of mini-stories that made up the entire plot, it almost felt like the individual stories weren't as in-depth as you'd want it to be and the book didn't really feel like it had a destination but was more of a description of an overall story.