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A review by wodime
The Foghorn Echoes by Danny Ramadan
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
man... was looking forward to this one, but it was so disappointing 😠basically sunk-cost-fallacy'd myself into finishing it, which... oof.
wassim's plot was fine, but hussam's was fucking insufferable. difficult to buy into his struggles with queerness and diaspora when he's so unsympathetic, has no positive qualities, AND uncritically reproduces all the most obnoxious parts of cis gay culture (including transphobia lol). and while it's insane how much hussam sucks, that's reinforced by the flimsiness of the other canadian characters. he has two interchangeable gay friends; a sugar daddy who, even taking his white-saviour complex into account, doesn't deserve the way hussam treats him; and dawood, who's less of a character and more of a gender-studies curriculum. the sum total is a novel that sells itself on the back of diversity, but then proves itself crushingly un-intersectional, from start to finish. noxious.
oh, and i hated the prose, but what else is new. fork found in kitchen
wassim's plot was fine, but hussam's was fucking insufferable. difficult to buy into his struggles with queerness and diaspora when he's so unsympathetic, has no positive qualities, AND uncritically reproduces all the most obnoxious parts of cis gay culture (including transphobia lol). and while it's insane how much hussam sucks, that's reinforced by the flimsiness of the other canadian characters. he has two interchangeable gay friends; a sugar daddy who, even taking his white-saviour complex into account, doesn't deserve the way hussam treats him; and dawood, who's less of a character and more of a gender-studies curriculum. the sum total is a novel that sells itself on the back of diversity, but then proves itself crushingly un-intersectional, from start to finish. noxious.
oh, and i hated the prose, but what else is new. fork found in kitchen