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A review by deecreatenola
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
1.0
Never judge a book by its cover. That's what I did with this book and I was very sorry I did. The cover is made to look like a hand-carved wooden cover on a book you might find in a Middle Eastern bazaar. I was also intrigued because the author wrote Zetouin, which is a non-fiction story about a muslim man who was falsely imprisoned after Katrina. The cover caught me, the slim New Orleans connection reeled me in.
I should have known when the description said that the story was elegiac. Boy, was it. I couldn't stand the main character, Alan Clay, and his utter self-involvement and lamentations over the mistakes he's made. Yes, it does place it well in our current times and gives some framing for the current economic state we are in. But the story is so plodding, with very little actually happening. That is part of the point, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable. The only things I liked were the description of Saudi Arabia in all of its dichotomies and the character of Yousef. I would have much preferred story focusing on Yousef.
I should have known when the description said that the story was elegiac. Boy, was it. I couldn't stand the main character, Alan Clay, and his utter self-involvement and lamentations over the mistakes he's made. Yes, it does place it well in our current times and gives some framing for the current economic state we are in. But the story is so plodding, with very little actually happening. That is part of the point, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable. The only things I liked were the description of Saudi Arabia in all of its dichotomies and the character of Yousef. I would have much preferred story focusing on Yousef.