Review by nataliecoyne - What Strange Paradise

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nataliecoyne 's review for:

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

4.5

adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I really enjoyed this book, and the ending gave me literal goosebumps. I literally shivered when I read it. And I'm not using "literally" in the way that people conflate it with "figuratively," I do mean this literally. I looked up explanations on the ending and read about the connections to

Greek mythology

(not actually sure saying those two words is a spoiler, but I'm marking it as such just in case for the people who may pick up on what I mean by saying those two words), which as someone not super familiar with that subject manner, I did not catch on to. But knowing that connection, it's clear how brilliant of writing choices Omar El Akkad used when writing this book.

This book was a bit too "literary" for me, though. In the sense that there were some passages throughout that I had to re-read multiple times to understand what was happening. Additionally, I wish we spent more time learning of "Amir's life and how he came to be on the boat" (as mentioned in the book description), I feel like we spent more time just with him being on the boat and what happened after the boat. That's why I'm giving this 4.5 stars instead of 5 stars.

Content Warnings