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A review by melbsreads
The Dove's Necklace by Raja Alem
2.0
Trigger warnings: murder, misogyny, childbirth, death of a child, violence.
Here's the thing: I've been wanting to read this book for a year now, after stumbling across it in Foyles last year. But I didn't have space in my suitcase for it at the time, so I put it on the backburner. Until I saw a copy sitting on the new books shelf at my local library.
The premise sounded SO interesting - a woman's body is found in a laneway in Mecca, and she can't be identified. It's told from the perspective of a bunch of different people, including the street where she's found. Like...WHAT?! That sounds great!!
Uuuuuuunfortunately, this was one of the slowest books I've ever read in my life. The story cuts back and forth between the investigation (most of which was "who is this woman?") and a string of emails from one of the possibly-dead-women to...a person who still remains unknown at the end of the book. Add in the fact that it's a fraction under 500 pages, and I was on the snooze train. Literally. I fell asleep about twenty times while reading this.
I honestly can't work out if it was the writing, the story, or the translation. Maybe a combination of all three?? But yeah. I...didn't love this.
(If it hadn't done such a solid job of portraying Mecca, it would have been a 1 star book, tbh)
Here's the thing: I've been wanting to read this book for a year now, after stumbling across it in Foyles last year. But I didn't have space in my suitcase for it at the time, so I put it on the backburner. Until I saw a copy sitting on the new books shelf at my local library.
The premise sounded SO interesting - a woman's body is found in a laneway in Mecca, and she can't be identified. It's told from the perspective of a bunch of different people, including the street where she's found. Like...WHAT?! That sounds great!!
Uuuuuuunfortunately, this was one of the slowest books I've ever read in my life. The story cuts back and forth between the investigation (most of which was "who is this woman?") and a string of emails from one of the possibly-dead-women to...a person who still remains unknown at the end of the book. Add in the fact that it's a fraction under 500 pages, and I was on the snooze train. Literally. I fell asleep about twenty times while reading this.
I honestly can't work out if it was the writing, the story, or the translation. Maybe a combination of all three?? But yeah. I...didn't love this.
(If it hadn't done such a solid job of portraying Mecca, it would have been a 1 star book, tbh)