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A review by sbnich
City of a Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks
3.0
I wanted to love this book. In places, I did love the book - lyrical and tragic, shaped by two factions, unwilling and unable to see just how alike they are with their covered women, richly spiced food, and intertwined histories.
The second half was better than the first, but alas, the heart of the story, a tragedy really, was obscured by gratuitous, extraneous nonsense. It was almost as Sacks had a need to purge certain things from herself, weaving them into the narrative like detritus collected in a flood of thought.
That purge, the detritus, detracted so heavily from the book: the weak, insipid Vera, the explicitly extraneous Amir, the vapid Rachel and Emily, obscured and detracted from the narrative so heavily it was confusing.
Disappointed, even as there were some beautiful, thought provoking parts.
The second half was better than the first, but alas, the heart of the story, a tragedy really, was obscured by gratuitous, extraneous nonsense. It was almost as Sacks had a need to purge certain things from herself, weaving them into the narrative like detritus collected in a flood of thought.
That purge, the detritus, detracted so heavily from the book: the weak, insipid Vera, the explicitly extraneous Amir, the vapid Rachel and Emily, obscured and detracted from the narrative so heavily it was confusing.
Disappointed, even as there were some beautiful, thought provoking parts.