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A review by mesal
Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
Clearly a reimagining of The Handmaid's Tale but for and about women from Muslim countries, Before She Sleeps envisions a dystopian future in which nuclear warfare, climate change, and an infertility epidemic have restructured society so that all women are expected to take multiple husbands and contribute to repopulation. A few women resist, of course, and escape to an underground network known as the Panah, where they "rebel" against the authoritarian government by providing the scarce service of intimacy sans sex to rich men in power, so that these men turn a blind eye to the existence of the Panah.
It was honestly just okay. While I liked the world and the direction Shah was trying to take, especially during the first half of the novel, in the second half things started falling apart. Characters kept making out-of-character decisions simply to further the plot, and there was more focus on the romance between Julien and Sabine than I felt there really needed to be. Contrary to other reviews of this book, though, I didn't mind the open ending, only certain aspects of the journey to it.
It was honestly just okay. While I liked the world and the direction Shah was trying to take, especially during the first half of the novel, in the second half things started falling apart. Characters kept making out-of-character decisions simply to further the plot, and there was more focus on the romance between Julien and Sabine than I felt there really needed to be. Contrary to other reviews of this book, though, I didn't mind the open ending, only certain aspects of the journey to it.