A review by annabanana96
The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton

5.0

This is a kind of personal book which took me on an emotional journey because I lived in Cairo and experienced at least the beginning of the revolution. This book is incredibly powerful, telling in a kind of non-linear chaotic way the story of the Egyptian revolution from the view of one of the revolutionaries. It is raw, brutally real, down to the description of the torture of people. I glimpsed at a parallel world which I never experienced or was aware of when I lived there as a teenager from a foreign country. This was enlightening, being like a veil being pulled back, exposing the dark and dirty side of the wonderfully prepared stage on which you stood and thought everything was so great on. The book paints the euphoria of the young people hoping to change everything. It has thought-provoking pictures and symbols. The lines transport you to the hot, dusty, loud and crowded streets of Cairo. This book also has, however, some issues. More than once I was confused as to what was happening and where everybody was. There are a lot of names. In the middle I thought one of the main characters died, only finding out pages later that was not the case. There are snippets of thoughts from parents, Twitter, news etc. thrown in. Be prepared to read lines of thoughts, over a page, until anything else happens. This style of writing is probably not to everybody's taste. Still, this book left an impression on me and I just can't help but give it 5 stars.