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lady_chatterly's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
After reading this entire book, I'm still not sure what the title means. Perhaps it means that the more we try to look at something, the more difficult it is to discern. The meaning must embody a feeling of hopelessness, because the end point is that we cannot achieve understanding through writing, though we may hope to. Throughout the book, the narrator, Mina, addresses an unknown "you". In the beginning, we know only that "you" is a writer who felt unequal to the task of penning anything about the experience of helping Syrian refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos and so suggested that Mina do the writing. Mina is a trans woman of Lebanese descent. She has long been estranged from her family and homeland but has a good life in the US as a surgeon with a beautiful, brilliant wife. She comes to help the refugees at the request of her good friend Emma, also trans and a doctor. When Mina arrives, the onslaught of refugees has slowed; perhaps that's why she has so much time to stroll down memory lane. Approximately half the chapters take us back into the past - not only Mina's past but also the past experiences of people she knows. They're all interesting stories - stories of fleeing war-torn countries, of struggling to fit in, either because of your ethnicity (America is rightfully slammed for its hatred of those from the Middle East) or because of your sexuality. The trans angle interested me - not, I hope, from a voyeuristic standpoint but from a desire to understand. Transgenderism is not actually given a lot of weight, which is perhaps the point. We see Mina not as a trans woman but as a fully fleshed-out complex character. Her gender identity becomes unimportant, but her coming to grips with it is related, at least in part. She recalls that everyone knew she was different when she was being raised as a boy. People assumed gayness, but she was never attracted to men, nor was she overly feminine or flamboyant. She was never "girly". She was, somehow, from a young age, a strong woman; and she relates some of the relationships and experiences that helped her to understand that. She doesn't fit into any particular box. Her friends run the gamut of queerness. Her wife Francine pronounces Emma "too hetero" because Emma is always beautifully dressed and made-up and constantly has a new young man in her bed. The writer who Mina is addressing is, we come to find out, sometimes a flamboyant cross-dresser. Rasheed, an Israeli who has also come to the island to help the refugees, is a more understated gay man. But I didn't really feel the need to puzzle them out. I saw only their humanness, their desire to help these people who had left everything behind and risked their lives to start over. So the stories of gender overlap with the stories of suffering. Perhaps the common thread is the feeling of being an outsider. But that is hard to grasp until you look back on the book as a whole. It feels disjointed at times. It's difficult to tell what the main focus of the book is. One main thread is Mina's interactions with a particular Syrian family whose mother arrives on Lesbos with terminal cancer. Another thread is the revealing of how she became friends with "you, the writer" and his struggle to understand why, after years spent interviewing refugees, it was Lesbos that broke him.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Terminal illness, and War
Minor: Racism
alyssatuininga's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I picked this book up as part of my around-the-world challenge. The author is Lebanese. This story is about a trans woman from Lebanon who travels to Lesbos, Greece to help Middle Eastern refugees arriving on the shores of Lesbos as refugees. The book is actually a venue to tell the story of different refugees, including the main character and an author she meets. The writing in this book is absolutely beautiful, almost poetry. The characters are deep, complex, and feel so real, even some characters we only see for a few pages. My only complaint about the book is that it can be slightly disjointed. There were stories that I dearly oved and wanted to read more of. Some of the stories were less interesting and felt like they could have been skipped. Overall a fantastic book and I will definitely read more of his books.
Content Warnings
Minor: Cancer, Child death, Death, Sexual violence, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, and War
piecesofamber's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Classism
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Islamophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War
aehist's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia and War
ash_ton's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Suicide, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and War
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, and Death of parent
tracey1981's review
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This novel is packed with many different refugee stories in addition to the main story about a doctor and a writer (and their friends/family) supporting newly arrived Syrian refugees in Lesbos. I felt like I got a short story collection and a novel all-in-one and all of it brilliant. There is lots of hardship and sadness here but also humour, kindness, anger, a full range of human emotion & expression which brings the story of Syrian refugees to multi-dimensional life in ways I have rarely seen. Highly recommended.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and War
gracewiley's review
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Medical content, Medical trauma, and War
Minor: Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Car accident, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, and Dysphoria