Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jjkmanga 's review for:
The Pleasure Marriage
by Tahar Ben Jelloun
1 star *may change??? I'm stuck between a 2 and a 1
TW: racism, anti-blackness, ableism (?), misogyny
Okay, the next time I see a book in the "new" section in Netgalley and I think, "Wow, why has nobody requested this? Maybe I should do it" I'm going to slap myself across the face and refer back to this review.
The worst part is that the description was so good. Like, genuinely good. A Moroccan-based world about interracial marriage and the cultural significance of it as well as the racism faced by black women. Pair that up with a plot heavily centering on Islam, I was really interested in this and confused as to how nobody else seemed to notice it.
Turns out that sometimes it's better to conform.
Wow. I mean, this took me off guard. It starts off with a storyteller setting up the tale of Amir and Nabou with background information. He narrates the book, so the story isn't very connected to the characters and is kept at a distance, but I honestly didn't mind this much. What I did mind is the painfully awkward and honestly a bit weird sexual references?
Now, this book is literally called the 'pleasure' marriage, so I don't know what I was expecting. I don't mind sex in books or it being talked about, but you can tell this was written by a man. You can really tell.
Usually I'd give examples to show what I'm talking about, and trust me when I say there are a number of them, but I genuinely do not want to type them out. I will leave just one that completely surprised me (for context, this character is 15):
"Karim, excited by the feeling of the girl's firm breasts against his chest, ejaculated under his gandoura. Feeling ashamed, he didn't know where to go or how to hide the patch of sperm that was quite visible. His father pretended not to have seen anything, passed his arm over his shoulder, and they walked away quietly."
Sighs.
Yeah, no further comment. There are so many other things like this that I physically can't.
My first red flag was the fact that the translator's note at the beginning has like 7 different slurs??? The translator is talking about slurs against Jewish and black people and she just... drops them all? I mean, I knew from that moment I was in for something alright.
I just don't know what to say. I don't mind the writing style, and I wish it had focused more on Nabou learning about Islam or on the cultural aspects instead of whatever Tahar Ben Jelloun was doing.
Men should not be allowed to write about women at all at this point.
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced reader's copy.
TW: racism, anti-blackness, ableism (?), misogyny
Okay, the next time I see a book in the "new" section in Netgalley and I think, "Wow, why has nobody requested this? Maybe I should do it" I'm going to slap myself across the face and refer back to this review.
The worst part is that the description was so good. Like, genuinely good. A Moroccan-based world about interracial marriage and the cultural significance of it as well as the racism faced by black women. Pair that up with a plot heavily centering on Islam, I was really interested in this and confused as to how nobody else seemed to notice it.
Turns out that sometimes it's better to conform.
Wow. I mean, this took me off guard. It starts off with a storyteller setting up the tale of Amir and Nabou with background information. He narrates the book, so the story isn't very connected to the characters and is kept at a distance, but I honestly didn't mind this much. What I did mind is the painfully awkward and honestly a bit weird sexual references?
Now, this book is literally called the 'pleasure' marriage, so I don't know what I was expecting. I don't mind sex in books or it being talked about, but you can tell this was written by a man. You can really tell.
Usually I'd give examples to show what I'm talking about, and trust me when I say there are a number of them, but I genuinely do not want to type them out. I will leave just one that completely surprised me (for context, this character is 15):
"Karim, excited by the feeling of the girl's firm breasts against his chest, ejaculated under his gandoura. Feeling ashamed, he didn't know where to go or how to hide the patch of sperm that was quite visible. His father pretended not to have seen anything, passed his arm over his shoulder, and they walked away quietly."
Sighs.
Yeah, no further comment. There are so many other things like this that I physically can't.
My first red flag was the fact that the translator's note at the beginning has like 7 different slurs??? The translator is talking about slurs against Jewish and black people and she just... drops them all? I mean, I knew from that moment I was in for something alright.
I just don't know what to say. I don't mind the writing style, and I wish it had focused more on Nabou learning about Islam or on the cultural aspects instead of whatever Tahar Ben Jelloun was doing.
Men should not be allowed to write about women at all at this point.
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced reader's copy.