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A review by booktrotting
Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed
2.0
2.5 / 5 Stars
(before i start, is it just me or is this book really jarringly typeset? Like its not bad it just feels off?)
I wanted to love this. I kept picking it up while I was sorting through the shelves. It wasn't one I'd heard of, so it kept getting pushed until I finally picked it up properly this week. The premise is so unique - a teenage girl, burned by an Art History Scholarship rejection and her boyfriend's disinterest, is spending the summer in Paris with her parents. She meets a young, handsome descendent of Alexandre Dumas and they go on a research adventure, attempting to piece together the story of a missing Delacroix painting. Along the way she discovers the story of Leila, a young Muslim woman who is the subject of Byron's Giaour, and uncovers parts of her lost story. This sounds like an excellent premise for a book, because it is, but I wasn't in love with the execution.
Essentially, what you've got here is a Da Vinci Code style Arts and Humanities mystery. It's silly - very silly. The book doesn't quite lean into that enough, and feels like it presupposes an understanding of who Byron, Dumas and Delacroix are. I reckon you could get along okay without that knowledge but it would certainly help. Chunks of the language feel a little over-academic, leaning on texts like Said's Orientalism to construct a political and feminist argument for the book. Again, the argument is great - women's stories, particularly those of WOC, have been neglected and lost to time, so we must do what work we can to reconstruct them. Great, I'm all on board. However, at times the repeated stating of this thesis statement throughout the novel made it feel a bit ham-fisted. This seems to have the biggest impact on the dialogue, which often feels like reading a thinkpiece instead of reading about two teenagers talking to each other. I feel like the message could be executed just as well without the need to keep referring back to it constantly.
The romance was a bit damp too - I didn't feel the chemistry with Alexandre, nor were the stakes there enough with Zaid for me to really connect with it. Khayyam's lack of a moral leg to stand on with the boys was also frustrating. It just needed more.
There were also just huge plot points that strained my suspension of disbelief to breaking point. You're telling me that you found a whole salon left basically untouched for 150 years, left almost exactly as described in a specific letter? It just felt awfully convenient. If you're going to be that silly, lean into it more.
All being said, the writing and construction of the story itself was good, vivid and well-paced. Paris really came to life in this book in a way that felt very Parisian but not too self-indulgent. I liked Khayyam a lot, even though I thought her fixation on one specific scholarship was a bit odd, and weirdly unresolved at the end. I'd be interested to read Ahmed's other books to see if they stick a bit better than this with me.
(before i start, is it just me or is this book really jarringly typeset? Like its not bad it just feels off?)
I wanted to love this. I kept picking it up while I was sorting through the shelves. It wasn't one I'd heard of, so it kept getting pushed until I finally picked it up properly this week. The premise is so unique - a teenage girl, burned by an Art History Scholarship rejection and her boyfriend's disinterest, is spending the summer in Paris with her parents. She meets a young, handsome descendent of Alexandre Dumas and they go on a research adventure, attempting to piece together the story of a missing Delacroix painting. Along the way she discovers the story of Leila, a young Muslim woman who is the subject of Byron's Giaour, and uncovers parts of her lost story. This sounds like an excellent premise for a book, because it is, but I wasn't in love with the execution.
Essentially, what you've got here is a Da Vinci Code style Arts and Humanities mystery. It's silly - very silly. The book doesn't quite lean into that enough, and feels like it presupposes an understanding of who Byron, Dumas and Delacroix are. I reckon you could get along okay without that knowledge but it would certainly help. Chunks of the language feel a little over-academic, leaning on texts like Said's Orientalism to construct a political and feminist argument for the book. Again, the argument is great - women's stories, particularly those of WOC, have been neglected and lost to time, so we must do what work we can to reconstruct them. Great, I'm all on board. However, at times the repeated stating of this thesis statement throughout the novel made it feel a bit ham-fisted. This seems to have the biggest impact on the dialogue, which often feels like reading a thinkpiece instead of reading about two teenagers talking to each other. I feel like the message could be executed just as well without the need to keep referring back to it constantly.
The romance was a bit damp too - I didn't feel the chemistry with Alexandre, nor were the stakes there enough with Zaid for me to really connect with it. Khayyam's lack of a moral leg to stand on with the boys was also frustrating. It just needed more.
There were also just huge plot points that strained my suspension of disbelief to breaking point. You're telling me that you found a whole salon left basically untouched for 150 years, left almost exactly as described in a specific letter? It just felt awfully convenient. If you're going to be that silly, lean into it more.
All being said, the writing and construction of the story itself was good, vivid and well-paced. Paris really came to life in this book in a way that felt very Parisian but not too self-indulgent. I liked Khayyam a lot, even though I thought her fixation on one specific scholarship was a bit odd, and weirdly unresolved at the end. I'd be interested to read Ahmed's other books to see if they stick a bit better than this with me.